that famous and much frequented seat of learning were Alexander Carlyle [q. v.], William Dowdeswell (1721–1775) [q. v.], and Charles Townshend [q. v.]; but his especial friends were Andrew Baxter [q. v.], then at Utrecht, and Baron d'Holbach. He remained abroad less than two years, part of which was spent in travel in the Rhine lands. It is not probable that he devoted himself very seriously to study, but intercourse with his intellectual equals braced his faculties, and he returned to England with the tone and bearing of a scholar and a gentleman.
While still under age Wilkes married, in deference to his father's wishes, a woman ten years his senior, Mary, daughter and heiress of John Mead, a wealthy London grocer. The marriage placed him in possession of an estate at Aylesbury, the prebendal house and demesne, worth 700l. a year. His wife had a handsome jointure, and greater expectations—her mother died on 14 Jan. 1769 worth 100,000l.—but Wilkes's habits did not accord with the principles of the ladies, who were both strict dissenters, and in a few years a separation was arranged by mutual consent. Wilkes retained the Aylesbury estate and the custody of his only legitimate child, Mary, born on 5 Aug. 1750. His wife surrendered her jointure for an annuity of 200l. In 1758 she sought the protection of the king's bench against the persecution by which Wilkes was endeavouring to extort from her the surrender of her allowance (Burrow, Reports, i. 542). In April 1749 Wilkes was elected F.R.S. On 19 Jan. 1754 he was admitted into the Sublime Society of the Beef Steaks. His proclivities were literary and rakish. With John Armstrong (1709–1779) [q. v.], Thomas Brewster [q. v.], and John Hall-Stevenson [see Stevenson] he early formed durable friendships. Under the finished roué Thomas Potter [q. v.] he graduated in the fashionable vices. By Sir Francis Dashwood (afterwards Lord Le Despencer) he was enrolled in the profane and profligate confraternity of Medmenham Abbey. This set included Robert Lloyd [q. v.], Charles Churchill [q. v.], and Paul Whitehead [q. v.], all of whom became his fast friends. Among these monks of Theleme none surrendered himself to the orgie with more of the true Rabelaisian abandon than Wilkes. Their puerile mummeries, however, he despised; and on one occasion terrified most of them out of their wits by letting loose at the appropriate moment in the celebration of the messe noire a baboon decked out with the conventional insignia of Satan, which he had contrived to secrete within the building (Johnson, Chrysal, 1767, iii. 241).
In 1754 Wilkes served the office of high sheriff of Buckinghamshire, and contested (April) unsuccessfully the parliamentary representation of Berwick-on-Tweed. In 1757, by arrangement with Pitt and Potter, he succeeded the latter (6 July) as M.P. for Aylesbury. This affair, with the Berwick contest, cost him 11,000l. By further judicious outlay he secured his seat at the general election of March 1761. His political interest served him to make amends to Johnson for a piece of supercilious criticism. The ‘Grammar’ prefixed to the first edition of the ‘Dictionary’ (1755) contained, concerning the letter ‘H,’ the strange dictum, ‘It seldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable,’ whereon Wilkes had commented in the ‘Public Advertiser:’ ‘The author of this observation must be a man of quick apprehension and of a most comprehensive genius.’ Though Johnson took no notice of the sneer, it had rankled, and Wilkes was glad of an opportunity to salve the wound. When, therefore, he learned (March 1759) that Johnson's black servant was in the clutches of the press-gang, he used his influence at the admiralty to procure his release, and he succeeded. When, however, he came to ask favours for himself, the case was different. He had entered parliament a loyal supporter of Pitt, and he had given proof of loyalty at no small cost. With Pitt's brother-in-law, Lord Temple, he was closely associated in the organisation of the Bucks militia, of which he was appointed colonel in June 1762. Through the brothers-in-law he hoped to obtain either the embassy at Constantinople or the governorship of Quebec. He was disappointed, and attributed his want of success partly to Pitt's indifference, but much more to the malign influence of Lord Bute. That he seriously disapproved of Bute's foreign policy, and also of his system of government, there is no reason to doubt; but mortification probably added vigour and venom to the attacks with which he harassed the favourite. He began with anonymous ‘Observations on the Papers relative to the Rupture with Spain laid before both Houses of Parliament on Friday, 29 Jan. 1762.’ The pamphlet appeared in March 1762, caught the public ear, and damaged the government. Wilkes followed up his advantage in the ‘Monitor.’ In two numbers especially, 357 (22 May) and 360 (12 June), he pointed an obvious moral by reference to Count Brühl (the favourite of the king of Saxony), Madame de Pompadour, and her friend the Abbé de Bernis. He was answered by Smollett in
