GILBERT

See also:

• WAKEFIELD
• GILBERT WAKEFIELD (1756-1801)

WAKEFIELD (1756-1801)  , English classical scholar and politician, was born at Nottingham on the 22nd of February 1756 . He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge (fellow, 1776) . In 1778 he took orders, but in the following year quitted the church and accepted the post of classical tutor at the Non-conformist academy at Warrington, which he held till the dissolution of the establishment in 1783 . After leaving Warrington, he took private pupils at Nottingham and other places, and also occupied himself with literary work . His most important production at this period was the first part of the Silva critica, the design of which was the " illustration of the Scriptures by light borrowed from the philology of Greece and Rome." In 1790 he was appointed professor of classics at the newly-founded Unitarian college at Hackney, but his proposed reforms and his objection to religious observances led to unpleasantness and to his resignation in the following year . From this time he sup-ported himself by his pen . His edition of Lucretius, a work of high pretensions and little solid performance, appeared in 1796–1799, and gained for the editor a very exaggerated reputation (see Munro's Lucretius, i. pp . 19, 20) . His light-hearted criticism of Porson's edition of the Hecuba was avenged by the latter's famous toast: " Gilbert Wakefield; what's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba ? " About this time Wakefield, who hated Pitt and condemned war as utterly unchristian, abandoned literature for political and religious controversy . After assailing with equal bitterness writers so entirely opposed as William Wilberforce and Thomas Paine, in January 1798 he "employed a few hours " in drawing up a reply to Bishop Watson's Address to the People of Great Britain, written in defence of Pitt and the war and the new " tax upon income." He was charged with having published a seditious libel, convicted in spite of an eloquent defence, and imprisoned for two years in Dorchester gaol . A considerable sum of money was subscribed by the public, sufficient to provide for his family upon his death, which took place on the 9th of September 18o1 .

While in

prison he corresponded on classical subjects with Charles James Fox, the letters being subsequently published . See the second edition of his Memoirs (1804) . The first volume is autobiographical; the second, compiled by J . T . Rutt and A . Wainewright, includes several estimates of his character and performances from various sources, the most remarkable being one. by Dr Parr; see also Gentleman's Magazine (September 18o1); Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary (3rd ed., 1872); John Aikin in Aikin's General Biography (1799-1815) .