1654, 16mo. 2. ‘Brevis Tractatus de Jure Diei Dominicæ,’ Oxford, 1654, 8vo. 3. ‘The Hope of Glory,’ Oxford, 1657, 8vo. 4. ‘Conciones sex ad Academicos,’ Oxford, 1658, 8vo. 5. ‘The Gospel Embassy,’ Oxford, 1658, 4to. 6. ‘De Impotentia Liberi Arbitrii ad bonum spirituale,’ Oxford, 1658, 8vo. 7. ‘Three Decads of Sermons,’ Oxford, 1660, 4to. 8. ‘The Doctrine of Contentment briefly explained and practically applied,’ London, 1671, 8vo. 9. ‘Two Treatises,’ London, 1681, 8vo. He also had a hand in compiling the ‘Catalogus Librorum in Biblioth. Aulæ Magdalenæ,’ Oxford, 1661, 16mo, and wrote prefaces to Henry Hurst's ‘Inability of the Highest,’ &c., Oxford, 1659, 8vo, and Nicholas Clagett's ‘Abuse of God's Grace,’ Oxford, 1659, 4to; as well as an elegy in verse appended to his funeral sermon (Oxford, 1657, 8vo) on Mrs. Margaret Corbet, daughter of Sir Nathaniel Brent [q. v.]
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. iii. 932, iv. 274, 284; Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, i. 241, iii. 130; David's Evangelical Nonconformists in Essex, p. 578; Kennett's Register, pp. 72, 127, 213, 246, 487, 737; Wood's Life and Times, ed. Clark, i. 147, 407, 413, 440, 453, ii. p. viii; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1 p. 2 1671–2 pp. 568, 587, 589; Nalson's Collections, i. 700, 765; Wood's Hist. and Antiq. ed. Gutch, p. 687; Burrows's Visitation of Oxford, pp. 110 n., 519, 567; Le Neve's Fasti Eccles. Angl. iii. 523, 587; Calamy's Continuation, iii. 62; Staunton's Sermon preached at the funeral of his wife, Elizabeth Wilkinson, Oxford, 1659, 4to, with elegiac verses by several hands, including her husband's; Ellis's Account of Great Milton, privately printed, Oxford, 1819, where Henry and John, D.D., are called brothers.]
WILKINSON, JAMES JOHN GARTH (1812–1899), Swedenborgian, born in London, in Acton Street, Gray's Inn Lane, on 3 June 1812, was the eldest son of
James John Wilkinson (d. 1845), eldest son of Martin Wilkinson of the city of Durham. He entered Gray's Inn on 26 Nov. 1802, and afterwards practised as a special pleader. He was also a judge of the county palatine of Durham; he married Harriet Robinson of Sunderland, and died in 1845. He was the author of: 1. ‘The Practice in the Act of Replevin,’ London, 1825, 8vo. 2. ‘A Treatise on the Limitation of Actions, as affecting Mercantile and other Contracts,’ London, 1829, 8vo. 3. ‘The Law relating to the Public Funds,’ London, 1839, 12mo. 4. ‘The Law of Shipping as it relates to the Building, Registry, Sale, Transfer, and Mortgage of British Ships,’ London, 1843, 8vo.
His son was educated at a school in Sunderland, and afterwards at a private school at Mill Hill kept by John Charles Thorowgood, and at Totteridge in Hertfordshire. About the age of sixteen he was apprenticed by his father to Thomas Leighton, senior surgeon of the infirmary at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1832 he came to London to walk the hospitals, and in June 1834 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and a licentiate of the London Apothecaries Society. Convincing himself of the merits of homœopathic treatment, he established himself as a homœopathic doctor at rooms in Wimpole Street, and received the honorary degree of M.D. from the university of Philadelphia.
Wilkinson possessed the temperament of a mystic. He was attracted by the writings of William Blake (1757-1827) [ q. v.], and in 1839 edited his ‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’ (London, 8vo), with considerable alterations. A volume of his own poems, entitled ‘Improvisations from the Spirit’ (London, 16mo), which appeared in 1857, showed many traces of Blake's influence. Early in life Wilkinson was introduced by his maternal uncle, George Blakiston Robinson, to the writings of Swedenborg, and he became a member of the committee of the Swedenborg Society and of the sub-committee for promoting the issue of a uniform edition of Swedenborg's works. From 1839 he devoted his literary energies to the translation and elucidation of Swedenborg's writings. When in 1840 he began to contribute to the ‘Monthly Magazine,’ the originality of his philosophic intellect immediately attracted attention. A paper which appeared in 1841 dealing with Coleridge's comments on Swedenborg's ‘Œconomia Regni Animalis’ and his ‘De Cultu et Amore Dei’ gained the admiration of the American writer Henry James, father of the novelist. James corresponded largely with him, and two of his works, ‘The Church of Christ not an Ecclesiasticism’ (2nd edit. 1856) and ‘Christianity the Logic of Creation’ (1857), were composed of letters originally addressed to Wilkinson. In 1843 and 1844 Wilkinson published his translation of Swedenborg's ‘Regnum Animale.’ These volumes were followed by further translations, one of which, ‘Outlines of a Philosophic Argument on the Infinite,’ won him the friendship of Emerson. Wilkinson's translations were accompanied by preliminary discourses which were declared by Emerson to ‘throw all contemporary philosophy of England into shade’ (Representative Men, 1882, p. 65; cf. English Traits, 1857, p. 140). Besides enjoying the esteem of Emerson, Wilkinson was intimate
