DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY.
Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Sidney Lee. Vol. LXII. (Smith, Elder, and Co. 15e. net.)—There are few eminent names among the three hundred odd which appear in the index to this volume. Wolsey, whose memoir has been con- tributed by Dr. James Gairdner, is the greatest of the company. His career, with its many vicissitudes and far-reaching interests, makes an excellent subject, and the occasion has been well used. Dr. Gairdner's eighteen pages give us a model of biography. George Wither, the poet, has been fortunate in a biography (by the editor) which will find more readers than are now attracted by his verse,—one felicitous piece excepted, "Shall I wasting in despair ?" Among the other names which will be generally known beyond the various circles of specialists are James Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, and Mrs. Henry Wood (née Price), who, if fame should be reckoned by the magnitude of, sales, must be reckoned among the most successful of English novelists. The Woods are a numerous class, the best known among them being Antony, the Oxford antiquarian ; Sir Matthew, reforming politician, a man who did good service to the State, but was most praised for his least meritorious action, the championship of Queen Caroline ; and Sir William Page Wood, afterwards Lord Hatherley, Sir Matthew's second son, a good lawyer and one of the best of men. The Wilsons are a company twice as numerous as the Woods, for they number more than seventy. Prominent among them are John, better known as " Christopher North " ; Daniel, Bishop of Calcutta (whose picture, as drawn by Mr. T. Seccombe, is somewhat like a fashionable photograph with all the lines rubbed out); Richard Wilson, the landscape painter ; and Thomas, Bishop of Sodor and Man, whose " Sacra Privata" probably come next, though longs intern-a/o, to the "De Imita.• tione,"—at least for English readers. Another Wilson, whose name was for a time in many mouths, was Margaretthe "Martyr of the Solway." She was fastened to a stake in the tideway for the offence of attending a field conventicle, and drowned. This is one of the deeds which, when it is no longer possible to defend or excuse them, are denied. But, as Mr. Seccombe puts it, there is " abundant evidence that the death-warrant was carried out in all its barbarity." The same course has been followed in refer- ence to the Gunpowder Plot. The memoir of Thomas Winter, one of the chief conspirators, comes into this volume. In the judgment of Mr. T. G. Law, Father Gerard is no more successful in dissolving the Plot into a fable than Mr. Napier was in the case of the Solway tragedy.
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