Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/610

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
*
518
*

WILKINSON. 518 WILKINSON. but rather grandiose writer. Since his death materials have been brought to light which show him to have been a consummate intriguer, barren of honor and shamelessly corrupt. He published: The Aaroji Burr Conspiracy Exposed (1808) ; and a partially reliable work. Memoirs of My Own Times (iSlG), which was left incomplete. For accounts of his Western intrigues, consult: Gaj'arre. Spanish Dominion in Louisiana (New York, 1854) ; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, vol. iii. (ib., 1894) ; Green, The Spanish Con- spiracy (Cincinnati, 1S91) ; Daniel Clark, Proofs of the Corruption of Gen. James Wilkinson (1809); and McCaleb, The Aaron Burr Con- spiracy (New York, 1903). WILKINSON, .Jemima (1753-1819). An American religious enthusiast. She was born at Cumberland, R. I., and educated among the So- ciety of Friends. When twenty years old she suf- fered from a severe fever, and, after an apparent suspension of life, she asserted that she had been raised from the dead to instruct the living. She professed to work miracles. She had a few fol- lowers who with her built in Yates County, N. Y., a village named Jerusalem. She enjoined celibacy, and the religious exercises which she in- stituted had some resemblance to those of the Shakers. At her death the sect was broken up. Consult; David Hudson, History of Jemima Wil- kinson (Seneca, N. Y'., 1821) ; and Memoir of Jemima Wilkinson (Bath, N. Y., 1844). WILKINSON, Sir John CtAbd>-er (1797- 1875). A distinguished English traveler and Egyptologist, born October 5, 1797. Wilkinson was educated at Harrow and at Exeter College, Oxford, but left the university without taking a degree and went to Italy for his health in 1820. Becoming interested in Eg>-ptological studies, he went to Egj'pt in 1821 and took up his abode at Cairo, where he soon became proficient in Arabic and in Coptic. In the course of the next twelve years he explored nearly every part of Egypt and Lower Nubia, twice ascending the Nile as far as the second cataract and several times as far as Thebes. To the exploration of the latter site he devoted more than a year, and he also visited the deserts on either side of the Nile and the Egj-ptian oases. As a result of his first visit to Egj'pt, he transmitted to the British JIuseum more than 300 antiquarian objects, besides nu- merous specimens of natural history. His first work on Eg3'ptian antiquities, Materia Hiero- gh/phiea, was iniblished at Malta in 1828. It was followed, two years later, hy Extracts from Several Hieroiilyphival Huhjects. and in the same year (1830) he published his Topoiiraiihical Sur- vey of Thebes in six sheets. In 1833 he was com- pelled by ill health to return to England, and at the close of the following year he was elected fellow of tlie Royal Society. His Topography of Thrhes and (Irnrral View of Eyi/pt was published at London in 1833, and two years later appeared his great work. Manners ami Customs of the An- cient F^i/yptians (3 vols., best ed. by I'.irch, 187S) , a work remarkable both for the extensive and ac- curate information it contains and for tlie agree- able style in which it is written. It immediately attained great popularity and gained for its author in 1839 the honor of knighthood. In 1841 he revisited EgJ'pt, traveled extensively in Northern Africa, Syria, and Turkey, and" re- turned to England in 1843. In the year of his return he published his Modern Egypt and Thebes, of which a new and condensed edition was issued among Murray's Hand-books in 1847. A journey through Montenegro, Herzegovina, and Bosnia in 1844 furnished the material for his Dalmutia and Montenegro (2 vols., 1848). He visited Egypt for the third time in 1848-49 and again in 1855-56. He presented his collec- tion of Eg^'ptian, Greek, and other antiquities to Harrow School and in 1874 gave to the same institution his valuable collection of coins and medals. He died at Llandovery, in Wales, Oc- tober 29, 1875. Among Wilkinson's other works may be mentioned: The Architecture of Ancient Eyypt (1850); The Fragments of the Hieratic Papyrus at Turin (1851) ; A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians (1853); The Egyptians in the Time of the Ph<traohs (1857) ; On Color, and on the Xeccssity for a General Diffusion of Taste Among All Classes (1858). WILKINSON, Tate (1739-1803). An Eng- lish actor and theatrical manager, especially celebrated for his powers of mimicry. At first he did not meet with much success as an actor, and in fact his own regular acting never ad- vanced him very far: but he showed such a popu- lar gift for mimicking the peculiarities of other performers that he was throughout his early career alternately the delight and the detestation of the theatrical people with whom he had to do. He was especially successful in mimicking Peg Wofhngton, Foote, and Garrick, to all of whom he gave considerable offense. In the provinces Wilkinson successfully took leading parts in serious drama. About 1768 he married and settled down in York as the manager of what was called the Yorkshire Circuit, which he directed with excellent judgment and prosperity for over thirty years. Among his actors were Mrs. Sid- dons and the other Kembles, Miss Farren, and a number of others who afterwai'ds became fa- mous. His oddities were notorious, but he was a generous manager. Of his writings the most important are: the Memoirs of His Own Life, by Tate Wilkinson, Patentee of the Theatres-Royal, York and Bull (1790) and The Wandering Pat- entee; or a History of the Yorkshire Theatres from 1770 to the Present Time, etc. (1785). Consult also: Archer, in Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, edited by JIatthews and Hutton (New York, 1886) ; Baker, Our Old Actors (London, 1881). ■ WILKINSON, William Cleaves (183.3—). An American educator and poet. He was a graduate of Rochester University (1857) and Theological Seminary (1859), pastor of a Bap- tist church in New Haven until 1861 and of another in Cincinnati (1863-66). He then opened a school at Tarrytown, N. Y., and from 1872 till 1881 was professor of homiletics in Rochester Seminary, and after 1892 professor of poetry and criticism in the University of Chicago, giv- ing himself mainly to literary work. For the Chautauqua Literary anil Scientific Circle he ]ii('|iarc(l many text-books on languages. He jjublished also: The Dance of Modern Society (1808) ; A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters (1874): The Baptist Principle (1881); Webster, an ode (1882) ; Poems (1883) ; Edwin Arnold as Poetizcr and Paganizer (1885); The