Wilkes, John
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- Wilkes, John
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(1725 - 97), politician, 2nd s. of Israel Wilkes of Clerkenwell; L.Inn 1742; Leiden 1744 - 6; m. 1747 Mary Mead; FRS 1749; MP 1757 - 64, 1768 - 9, 1774 - 90; Ld. Mayor of London 1774 - 5.
1765 [dep. Paris Dec. 1764] Turin (8 - 11 Jan. 1765), Milan (13 Jan.), Parma (15 Jan.), Modena (17 - 18 Jan.), Bologna (19 - 28 Jan.), Florence (30 Jan. - 9 Feb.), Siena (10 Feb.), Acquapendente (12 Feb.), Viterbo (13 Feb.), Rome (14 - 21 Feb.), Naples (26 Feb. - 27 Jun.) [Paris 4 Oct.]
Wilkes slipped off to Paris in December 1763, just before his expulsion from the House of Commons on a charge of seditious libel, and immediately after his duel with Samuel Martin. On 1 November 1764 he told Lord Temple [Richard Grenville] that he intended to leave 'the expensive and luxurious Paris' to 'live quite alone in some town of Italy, neither seen nor known, visiting nor visited, boarding in a good family', occupying himself with a 'history of my own country'.1 He described his journey to Italy in a series of charming letters to his fifteen-year-old daughter Polly (from which the itinerary is taken),2 in the course of which he reminded her that a letter 'is twenty days in the common passage from London to Naples: if the wind is contrary, it is more'.
He passed quickly through northern Italy to Rome; John Needham was the most agreeable object he had seen at Turin; at Milan he had been treated 'in a most distinguished manner' and at Parma there were the Correggio paintings in the dome of the cathedral 'very few of which are in tolerable preservation'. At Bologna he paid his compliments 'to mademoiselle Corradini and dined every day at her house'. He did not tell his daughter that Gertrude Maria Corradini,3 previously John Udny's mistress, was now his and was accompanying him to Naples. When he came to Florence he did not go to the resident's [Horace Mann's] 'to save him the embarras of returning a visit to a man so very obnoxious to the English (or rather Scottish [a dig at Lord Bute]) ministry as myself'. He lodged at the Locanda di Carlo [Hadfield's] and the French minister Lorenzi carried him 'to the most wretched of all entertainments, the conversazione of the Italians'.4 On 14 February he arrived in Rome where he spent eight days with Winckelmann.5 The two men evidently respected each other and two months later, when Wilkes was in Naples, Winckelmann sent him 'an antique sepulchral urn of alabaster' which Wilkes had inscribed to the memory of the Rev. Charles Churchill. In Rome Corradini attracted attention; Andrew Lumisden thought Wilkes's two female companions (the second presumably Corradini's mother) had been picked up at Parma, but a week later he said 'the girl he has along with him is a Bolognese dancer',6 and John Holroyd confirmed that Wilkes, 'a charming, wicked, honest, jolly, candid sort of fellow', had with him in Rome 'a most exquisite female, an Italian that he collected at Paris'.7
On 26 February Wilkes arrived in Naples, a resort he had chosen for its climate and situation '& most disagreable inhabitants'.7 He intended to write 'two great works': to prepare an edition of the poems of his lamented friend and collaborator the Rev. Charles Churchill who had died in France in November 1764, and to compile a History of England from the Revolution. 'I live much retired, and avoid as much as possible all the Neapolitan nobility', he wrote on 18 March, but for two weeks in March this retirement was interrupted by James Boswell, who had pursued Wilkes to Naples. Boswell wrote to him on 2 March in Latin ('Caesar ultor Brutum in exilio salutat'), and there followed a brief friendship which Boswell recorded in his Journal.8 Among other things Wilkes told Boswell he could not stand the Corradini's relatives whom she had brought to live with them, but he was grateful nonetheless for his mistress's 'divine gift of lewdness'. Before Boswell left on 19 March they had climbed Vesuvius together and inspected the Villa Pietracatella at Vomero, where Wilkes settled in April. He had first lodged 'at an inn, called Stephano's; a large good house on the banks of the sea', but on 3 April he moved to his villa, telling his friend Cotes his new house would cost 'about thirty-five pounds a-year, but I am obliged to buy some furniture'. Wilkes worked hard and lived privately with Corradini and her mother. 'I am from morning to night with a pen or a book in my hand. That is my present business, which entirely occupies me' he wrote on 9 April, and a week later he told his daughter 'I have not been out but once for a fortnight, nor seen any body but Sir William Stanhope and major [Richard] Ridley'.
In May Wilkes charitably accommodated Holroyd and one of his companions (probably Bolton) who was ill,11 and at Lady Orford's he had met William Hamilton. Like Mann in Florence, Hamilton was not anxious to meet him 'oftener than can not be avoided',9 and the Neapolitan minister Tanucci had also chosen to ignore Wilkes's letter of recommendation.(10) By 21 May Wilkes had 'above half finished my edition of Churchill', but the Corradini and her mother had left. He told Cotes, 'I live alone, and write or read ten hours a-day regularly'. Corradini's departure gave rise to much apparently libellous speculation; she was said to have been pregnant and to have taken all Wilkes's papers with her, but Horace Mann was probably right in saying 'I believe there is no more in the affair than that they could not agree'.(12) On 25 June Wilkes told his daughter he was taking the opportunity of sailing back to Marseilles with his English friend Major Ridley and they duly sailed on 27 June.
Wilkes had not been impressed with Italy or with travelling. 'I expected to see a very clever and polite people', he told his daughter; 'on the contrary, you cannot imagine any thing more ignorant, more ill-bred, or more coarse, than they are. Their conversation is shocking to a modest ear', and he added that 'travelling too is worse than I can describe'.
1. Wal.Corr., 22:263n17. 2. Wilkes Corr., 2:107 - 73, 190 - 203. 3. Wal.Corr., 22:305n2. 4. Wal.Corr., 22:282 - 3. 5. Winckelmann 1898, 3:260. 6. Lumisden letters MSS (to Ld. Dunbar, 19, 26 Feb. 1765). 7. Add.34887, f.168 (8 Mar. 1765). 8. Boswell, Italy, 55 - 61. 9. SP 105/316, ff.56, 76 (Hamilton, 12 Mar., 2 Apr. 1765). 10. Wal.Corr., 22:292 and nn11, 12. 11. Add.34887, f.175 (Holroyd, 4 Jun. 1765). 12. Wal.Corr., 22:305 and n2 (15 Jun. 1765).