county, Massachusetts, Dec. 8, 1765. His father was a respectable farmer. Very early he gave striking indications of the mechanical genius for which he was distinguished. His education was of a limited character until he had reached the age of nineteen, when he conceived the idea of entering a college. Accordingly, notwithstanding the opposition of his parents, he prepared himself, partly by means of the profits of his manual labor, partly by teaching a village school, for the freshman class in the university of New Haven, which he entered, May, 1789. Soon after he took his degree, in the autumn of 1792, he entered into an engagemént with a gentleman of Georgia, to reside in his family as a private teacher. But on his arrival in that state, he found that another teacher had been employed, and he was left entirely without resources. Fortunately, however, among the passengers in the vessel in which he sailed, was Mrs. Greene, the widow of the celebrated general, who had given him an invitation to spend some time at her residence at Mulberry grove, near Savannah; and, on learning his disappointment, she benevolently insisted upon his making her house his home until he had prepared himself for the bar, as was his intention. He had not been long in her family before a complete turn was given to his views. A party of gentlemen, on a visit to Mrs. Greene, having fallen into a conversation upon the state of agriculture among them, expressed great regret that there was no means of cleansing the green seed cotton, or separating it from its seed, remarking that until ingenuity could devise some machine which would greatly facilitate the process of cleansing, it was in vain to think of raising cotton for market. "Gentlemen," said Mrs. Greene, "apply to my young friend Mr. Whitney: he can make any thing." She then conducted them into a neighboring room, where she showed them a number of specimens of his genius. The gentlemen were next introduced to Whitney himself; and, when they named their object, he replied that he had never seen either cotton or cotton seed during his life. But the idea was engendered; and it being out of season for cotton in the seed, he went to Savannah, and searched among the warehouses and boats until he found a small portion of it. This he carried home, and set himself to work with such rude materials and instruments as a Georgia plantation afforded. With these resources, however, he made tools better suited to his purpose, and

drew his own wire, of which the teeth of the earliest gins were made, which was an article not at that time to be found in the market of Savannah. Mrs. Greene and Mr. Miller, a gentleman who, having first come into the family of general Greene as a private tutor, afterwards married his widow, were the only persons admitted into his workshop, who knew in what way he was employing himself. The many hours he spent in his mysterious pursuits, afforded matter of great curiosity, and often of raillery, to the younger members of the family. Near the close of the winter, the machine was so nearly completed as to leave no doubt of its success. Mrs. Greene then invited to her house gentlemen from different parts of the state; and on the first day after they had assembled, she conducted them to a temporary building which had been erected for the machine, and they saw with astonishment and delight, that more cotton could be separated from the seed in one day, by the labor of a single hand, than could be done in the usual manner in

the

space of many months. An invention so important to the agricultural interest (and, as it has proved, to every department of human industry) could not long remain a secret. The knowledge of it soon spread through the state; and so great was the excitement on the subject, that multitudes of persons came from all quarters of it to see the machine; but it was not deemed prudent to gratify their curiosity until the patent right had been secured. So determined, however, were some of the populace to possess this treasure, that neither law nor justice could restrain them; they broke open the building by night, and carried off the machine. In this way the public became possessed of the invention, and before Mr. Whitney could complete his model and secure his patent, a number of machines were in successful operation, constructed with some slight deviation from the original, with the hope of evading the penalty for violating the patent right. A short time after this, he entered into partnership with Mr. Miller, who, having considerable funds at command, proposed to him to become his joint adventurer, and to be at the whole expense of maturing the invention until i‹ should be patented. If the machine succeeded in its intended operation, the parties agreed to share equally all the profits and advantages accruing from it. The instrument of their partnership bears date May 27, 1793. Immediately afterwards, Mr Whitney repaired to Connecticut, where,

as far as possible, he was to perfect the machine, obtain a patent, and manufacture and ship for Georgia such a number of machines as would supply the demand. On the twentieth of June, 1793, he presented his petition for a patent to Mr. Jefferson, then secretary of state; but the prevalence of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, at that period the seat of government, prevented his concluding the business until several months afterwards. We have not space sufficient at our disposal to give a satisfactory detail of the obstacles and misfortunes which for a long time hindered the partners from reaping those advantages from the invention which it should have procured for them, and which they had an ample right to expect; and we must therefore refer our readers to an excellent memoir of Mr. Whitney, contained in the number of the American Journal of Science and Arts, conducted by professor Silliman, for January, 1832. These difficulties arose principally from the innumerable violations of their patent right, by which they were involved in various almost interminable lawsuits. The legis lature of South Carolina purchased, in 1801, their right for that state for the sum of fifty thousand dollars—a mere" song," to use Whitney's own phrase, “in comparison with the worth of the thing; but it was securing something." It enabled them to pay the debts which they had contracted, and divide something between them. In the following year, Mr. Whitney negotiated a sale of his patent right with the state of North Carolina, the legislature of which laid a tax of two shillings and sixpence upon every saw (and some of the gins had forty saws) employed in ginning cotton, to be continued for five years, which sum was to be collected by the sheriffs in the same manner as the public taxes; and, after deducting the expenses of collection, the proceeds were faithfully paid over to the patentees. No small portion, however, of the funds thus obtained in the two Carolinas, was expended in carrying on the fruitless lawsuits which it was deemed necessary to prosecute in Georgia. A gentleman who was well acquainted with Mr. Whitney's affairs in the south, and sometimes acted as his legal adviser, observed in a letter to the author of the memoir above mentioned, that, in all his experience in the thorny profession of the law, he had never seen a case of such perseverance under such persecution; "nor,” he adds, "do I believe that I ever knew any other man who would have met them with equal coolness

In

and firmness, or who would have obtained even the partial success which he had." There have, indeed, been but few instances in which the author of such inestimable advantages to a whole country as those which accrued from the invention of the cotton gin to the Southern States, was so harshly treated, and so inadequately compensated, as the subject of this sketch. He did not exaggerate when he'said that it raised the value of those states from fifty to one hundred per cent. "If we should assert," said judge Johnson, "that the benefits of this invention exceed one hundred millions of dollars, we can prove the assertion by correct calculation." Besides the violations of his right, he had to struggle against the efforts of malevolence and self-interest to deprive him of the honor of the invention, which he did triumphantly. 1803, the entire responsibility of the whole concern devolved upon him, in consequence of the death of Mr. Miller In 1812, he made application to congress for the renewal of his patent. In his memorial he presented a history of the difficulties which he had been forced to encounter in defence of his right, observing that he had been unable to obtain any decision on the merits of his claim until he had been eleven years in the law, and thirteen years of his patent term had expired. He set forth that his invention had been a source of opulence to thousands of the citizens of the U. States; that, as a laborsaving machine, it would enable one man to perform the work of a thousand men ; and that it furnishes to the whole family of mankind, at a very cheap rate, the most essential article of their clothing Hence he humbly conceived himself entitled to a further remuneration from his country, and thought he ought to be admitted to a more liberal participation with his fellow citizens in the benefits of his invention. It does, we must confess, strike us with no little surprise, that the southern platters, gentlemen who enjoy a great and just reputation for elevation and generosity of character, should not have taken some means of conveying to Mr. Whitney an adequate and substantial testimony of the gratitude which they must have felt towards one to whom they were so incalculably indebted. So far, however, from this having been the case, even the application just mentioned was rejected by congress on account of the warm opposition it experienced from a majority of the southern members. Some years before, in 1798, Mr. Whitney, impressed with

the uncertainty of all his hopes founded on the cotton gin, had engaged in another enterprise, which conducted him, by slow but sure steps, to a competent fortune. This was the manufacture of arms for the U. States. He first obtained a contract through the influence of Oliver Wolcott, at that time secretary of the treasury, for 10,000 stand of arms, amounting to $134,000, which was to be fulfilled with a little more than the period of two years. This was a great undertaking, as may be inferred from the facts, that the works were all to be erected, the machinery was to be made, and much of it to be invented; the raw materials were to be collected from different quarters, and the workmen themselves, almost without exception, were yet to learn the trade. The impediments he was obliged to remove were too numerous and great to allow him to fulfil his stipulation as to time, and eight years, instead of two, elapsed, before the muskets were all completed. The entire business relating to the contract was not closed until January, 1809, when (so liberally had the government made advances to the contractor) the final balance due Mr. Whitney was only $2400. It is universally conceded that his genius and industry greatly contributed to the improvement of the manufacture of arms, and, indeed, to the general advancement of arts and manufactures; for many of his inventions for facilitating the making of muskets were applicable to most other manufactures of iron and steel. In 1812, he entered into a new contract with the U. States for 15,000 stand of arms, and in the mean time executed a similar engagement for the state of New York. In January, 1817, he married the youngest daughter of Pierpont Edwards, late judge of the district court for the state of Connecticut. For the five subsequent years he continued to enjoy domestic happiness, a competent fortune, and an honorable reputation, when he was attacked by a fatal malady,an enlargement of the prostate gland, which, after causing great and protracted suffering, terminated his life on the eighth of January, 1825. In person, Mr. Whitney was considerably above the ordinary size, of a dignified carriage, and of an open, manly and agreeable countenance. His manners were conciliatory, and his whole appearance such as to inspire respect. He possessed great serenity of temper, though he had strong feelings, and a high sense of honor. Perseverance was a striking trait in his character. Every thing that

he attempted he effected as far as possible. In the relations of private life, he enjoyed the affection and esteem of all with whom he was connected. With regard to the results of his genius, we may quote the declaration of Fulton, that Arkwright, Wart and Whitney were the three men wb did most for mankind of any of their cc.emporaries. WHITSUNTIDE. day.)

(See Pentecost, and

WHITWORTH, Charles, earl, descended of an ancient family in Staffordshire, was horn in 1754, at Leoburne-grange, Kent, the seat of his father, sir Charles Whitworth, and was educated at Tunbridge grammar-school, on leaving which he obtained a commission in the guards. He soon quitted the army, and, after going rapidly through the usual subordinate diplomatic situations, was appointed, in 1786, minister plenipotentiary to the court of Poland, then the centre of the intrigues which terminated in the dismemberment and annihilation of that unfortunate kingdom. (See Poland.) In the autumn of 1788, he proceeded, in the same capacity, to St. Petersburg, where, in 1793, he received the red riband of the Bath, to give dignity to his mission, the object of which was a coalition against the French revolutionary government. On his return to England in 1800, sir Charles was created baron Whitworth of the kingdom of Ireland, and was soon after again despatched abroad on an embassy to the court of Denmark, then complaining of the right of search exercised by the English ships. An adjustment, which proved but shortlived, took place through his exertions in the August of the same year. The ambassador accordingly returned home, and, in the April following, married the duchess dowager of Dorset. After the treaty of Amiens, concluded by lord Hawkesbury and the marquis Cornwallis, lord Whitworth was accredited as plenipotentiary to Paris towards the close of 1802. His mission having terminated abruptly in the renewal of hostilities, he quitted the French capital, May 13, 1803. In the spring of 1813, he was made one of the lords of the bed-chamber, and, the year following, took his seat in the house as an English peer, by the title of viscount Whitworth. In the August of 1814, he succeeded the duke of Richmond as viceroy of Ireland, which dignity he enjoyed till 1817, when, the usual period of office being expired, he returned to England, having been in the interval advanced to an earldom. Lord Whitworth died in 1825

WICKLIFF, WICLEF, or DE WYCLIFFE, John, an eminent reformer of Christianity, or, as he is often styled, the Morning Star of the Reformation, was born about 1324, in Yorkshire, near the river Tees, in a parish whence he takes his name. He studied at Queen's college, Oxford, and then at Merton, in the same university, and distinguished himself by his attention to school divinity and the works of Aristotle, the most abstruse parts of whose writings he is said to have committed to memory. He also became intimately conversant with the civil and canon law, and with the laws of England; to which he added a diligent perusal of the Scriptures, and. the works of the Latin fathers of the church. As early as 1356, he inveighed against the authority of the pope, in a treatise Of the Last Age of the Church; and, in 1360, he was active in opposing the encroachments and intrigues of the mendicant friars, who took every opportunity to establish their credit and power in the university. In 1361, Wickliff was appointed master of Baliol college, and was presented to a college living; and, in 1365, Simon Islip, the primate, constituted him warden of Canterbury college, which he had then newly founded at Oxford. An equal number of regular and secular priests having been placed as fellows in this college, by the founder, after his death disputes arose, which led to the expulsion of Wickliff and the other three secular members of the college in 1367. On an appeal to Rome, the measure received the sanction of the papal court-a circumstance which naturally exasperated the mind of the ejected warden against the pope. In 1372, he took the degree of D. D., and then delivered lectures on theology with great applause. Disputes at this period existed between king Edward III and the court of Rome, relative to the homage and tribute exacted from king John; and the English parliament had determined to support their sovereign in his refusal to submit to the vassalage, in which his predecessors had been forced to acquiesce. A monk came forward as the advocate of the church; and Wickliff wrote a reply, which made him favorably known at court, and procured him the patronage of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. In 1374, he was sent to Bruges, in Flanders, to confer with the pope's nuncio on the liberties of the English church; and the same year, the king gave him the valuable rectory of Lutterworth, in Leiceste shire; and he shortly

after obtained a prebend in the collegiate church of Westbury, in Gloucestershire. He had now taken a decided part as to ecclesiastical politics; and having, in his writings, not only charged the bishop of Rome with simony, covetousness, ambition and tyranny, but also styled him antichrist, he was denounced as a heretic. Nineteen articles of alleged false doctrine, taken from his works, were transmitted to pope Gregory XI, who, in 1377, returned three bulls, addressed to the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London, ordering the seizure and imprisonment of Wickliff, and requiring the king and government, if necessary, to assist in extirpating the errors he had propagated. Edward III died before the bulls arrived, and the duke of Lancaster, who chiefly ruled the kingdom under his nephew, was the avowed protector of the refractory divine. Therefore, when he appeared at St. Paul's church, on the citation of the two prelates, he was accompanied by a vast concourse of people, and was supported by the duke of Lancaster and the earl marshal; and an altercation taking place between the noblemen and the bishops, the meeting was dissolved in a

tumultuous manner. Wickliff afterwards attended at Lambeth palace, and delivered to the two prelates a defence or explanation of the propositions objected against him. The populace flocked together in crowds to protect him; and he was dismissed without any judgment taking place. Pope Gregory XI dying in March, 1378, the commission he had issued expired, and Wickliff escaped further question for the present. In consequence, probably, of anxiety and fatigue, he was seized with a severe fit of illness; on his recovery from which, he applied himself anew, by writing and preaching, to his task of undermining the papal authority. The disputes then existing in the church, between the rival pontiffs, Urban VI and Clement VII, furnished him with an opportunity for exposing the exorbitant pretensions of the court of Rome, of which he freely availed. himself. Having, in some of his works, advanced some peculiar notions relative to the Eucharist, they attracted the notice and condemnation of the chancellor of the university of Oxford; on which Wickliff appealed to the king and parliament in 1382; but not being supported, as he had anticipated, by his former patron, John of Gaunt, he was compelled to submission; and he accordingly made a confession of his errors at

Oxford, before archbishop Courtney, six bishops, and other clergymen, who had already condemned his tenets as heretical. The principal points on which Wickliff was condemned by the synod were, 1st. his deviation from orthodox language, respecting the presence of Christ in the sacrament of the altar; 2d. his doctrine, that a pope, bishop or priest, who is in a state of mortal sin, has no authority over the faithful, and that his acts are null; 3d. his assertion, that Scripture prohibits ecclesiastics from having temporal possessions; and, 4th. the position, that where contrition is sincere, confession to a priest is useless. His opinion respecting the Lord's supper is supposed to have nearly resembled that of Luther and his followers. A royal letter was procured by the primate, addressed to the chancellor and proctors, directing them to expel from the university and town of Oxford all who should harbor Wickliff or his followers, or hold any communication with them. He was, however, allowed to retire unmolested to his rectory at Lutterworth, where he continued to preach, and completed a translation of the Scriptures, in which he had engaged some years before. In 1383, he was seized with palsy; and this attack furnished him with an excuse for not making his appearance to a citation of pope Urban VI. A second paralytic stroke terminated his life on the 31st of December, 1384; but his doctrines, or rather his spirit, survived him; and however his successors might vary from him in their exposition of mysterious dogmas, they owed to him the example of an open attack, by a learned clergyman, upon the authority of the church and the jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff. Payne, one of his disciples, carried his system into Bohemia, where it flourished in spite of persecution, and awakened the zeal of Huss, who, although he did not adopt all the doctrines of Wickliff, seems to have shared his hostility to the Roman clergy. (See Oldcastle, Huss, and Reformation.) "The new opinions on religion which now arose," says Mackintosh (History of England), "mingled with the general spirit of Christianity, in promoting the progress of emancipation, and had their share in the few disorders which accompanied it. (See Wat Tyler.) Wickliff, the celebrated reformer, had now become one of the most famous doctors of the English church. His lettered education rendered him no stranger to the severity with which Dante and Chaucer had lashed the

vices of the clergy, without sparing the corruptions of the Roman see itself. His theological learning and mystical piety led him to reprobate the whole system of wealth and wordliness, by which a blind bounty had destroyed the apostolical simplicity and primitive humility of the Christian religion. Viewing doctrines in this light, he might occasionally fluctuate in his feelings or language respecting them, without being liable to any grave imputation of inconsistency. This tem per, however, adds to the difficulty of ascertaining his opinions: necessarily progressive, they could not have been the same at every period of life. It is possible, that if he sometimes yielded to authority, he might have been actuated more by sincere deference than by personal apprehension." The works of Wickliff are numerous, but most of them remain in manuscript, in the libraries of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin, the British museum, and Lambeth. Among those which have been printed, are Trialogus (1525, 4to.; republished at Frankfort, 1753, 4to.), containing a body of theology, in the form of a conversation between Truth, Falsehood and Wisdom; Wickliff's Wicket, or a Learned and Godly Treatise of the Sacrament (Nuremberg, 1546, 8vo.; reprinted Oxford, 1612, 4to.): the Prologue to his Translation of the Bible, published by R. Crowley, under the title of the Pathway to Perfect Knowledge (1550, 12mo.); and his version of the New Testament (first edited by the reverend J Lewis, London, 1731, folio, and more recently by Baber, 1810, 4to.). The ver sion of the Old Testament remains unprinted. Wickliff was a bold and original speculator, both in religion and politics; and the influence of his writings on the state of public opinion in Germany, may be estimated from the proceedings against him at the council of Constance, after his death, when, his sentiments being condemned on the score of heresy, his bones were ordered to be taken up and burnt; and this sentence was afterwards (1425) executed. Among many biographical memoirs relating to him, may be mentioned the Life and Opinions of John de Wycliffe, principally from his unpublished Manuscripts, by Robert Vaughan (2 vols., 8vo., 1828), and Lebas's Life of Wickliff (1832).

WICQUEFORT, Abraham de, an eminent publicist of the seventeenth century, was born at Amsterdam, in 1598. The early part of his life was spent in Ger many; and the elector of Brandenburg, in