Slate of the Troad appeared in 1768. Lord Chatham gave him the post of Under-Secretary of State, which he held during three administrations. He died at his seat at Putney, near London, 9th September 1771, aged 55. His Essay on Homer, published after his death, has been translated into most of the European languages. "Wood's works are profusely and splendidly illustrated, and are marked by great accuracy. Horace Walpole speaks of his "classic pen;" and Gibbon bears ample testimony to the value of his researches. 16 34
Wylie, Samuel Brown, D.D., an oriental and classical scholar, was born near Ballymena, 21st May 1773. He was educated at Glasgow, and removed to Philadelphia in 1797, where he became Professor of Theology in the Reformed Presbyterian Church, a position he held for more than forty years. He was Professor of Ancient Languages in the University of Philadelphia from 1838 to 1845. Besides some works of a theological character, he wrote a Greek Grammar (1838) and a Life of Rev. Alexander McLeod. He was for fifty-one years pastor of the First Reformed Church, Philadelphia, where he died, 14th October 1852, aged 79. 37*
Wyse, Sir Thomas, K.C.B., author, politician, and diplomatist, was born in December 1791, at the manor of St. John, County of Waterford. He was the son of a country gentleman, and belonged to a family that traced their descent from one of the Anglo-Norman conquerors of Ireland, He was educated at Stonyhurst, and graduated with honours at Trinity College, Dublin. He entered at Lincoln's Inn, but was not called to the Bar. In 1821 he married Letitia, daughter of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, by whom he had two sons, who survived him. The marriage was not a happy one, and the parties separated in 1828. Mr. Wyse represented the County of Tipperary in Parliament from 1830 to 1832, and the City of Waterford from 1835 to 1847. He held office under Lord Melbourne from 1839 to 1841, and was one of the Secretaries of the Board of Control from 1846 to 1849, in which year he was appointed British Minister at Athens. He held this post during the remainder of his life; much responsibility devolving upon him during the Crimean War. In 1857 he was created a K.C.B. Besides translations and contributions to magazines, Sir Thomas Wyse was the author of several works, mostly sketches of travel in Europe and the East. In 1829 he published in London, in two volumes, a valuable Historical Sketch of the Late Catholic Association of Ireland, giving an account of the agitation for Catholic Emancipation from its inception to the success of the movement in that year. Few men had a more intimate knowledge of modern Greece and its people than Sir Thomas Wyse. He died at Athens, 15th April 1862, aged 70, writing despatches up to the last week of a long and painful illness. His remains were accorded a public funeral by the King of Greece. His niece, Winifrede M. Wyse, edited from his manuscripts, An Excursion in the Peloponnesus in 1858, with illustrations, in 2 vols., 1865; and Impressions of Greece, 1871. 7 16 53
Yelverton, Barry, Viscount Avonmore, a distinguished lawyer, was born at Newmarket, County of Cork, 28th May 1736. He studied at Trinity College, where he took his degree of B.A. in 1757; LL.B., 1761; and LL.D., 1774. A contemporary writer says: "He was called to the Bar in 1764; but many years passed away before he was at all distinguished, so as to attract the notice of the public; but he at length found his way into Parliament, where he joined the patriots of the day in procuring an enlargement of commercial privileges, and the establishment of legislative independence. Mr. Yelverton soon afterwards embraced the opposite side, and lent his aid to the Court, by resisting reform in the representation; … hence his professional advancement." He was made Attorney-General in 1782, Baron of the Exchequer in 1784, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Avonmore in 1795. He supported the Union Bill in the House of Lords in more than one masterly speech, and was created Viscount Avonmore in 1800. Lord Cornwallis's promise; of this advance in the peerage in return for his vote was one of those to which the Duke of Portland most strongly objected. Lord Avonmore died 19th August 1805, aged 69. Barrington says: "A vigorous, commanding, undaunted eloquence burst from his lips—not a word was lost. … In the common transactions of the world he was an infant; in the varieties of right and wrong, of propriety and error, a frail mortal; in the senate and at the Bar a mighty giant. It was on the bench that, unconscious of his errors, and in his home, unconscious of his virtues, both were most conspicuous. … A patriot by nature, yet susceptible of seduction—a partisan by temper, yet capable of instability—the commencement and the conclusion of his political career were as distinct as the poles, and as dissimilar as the elements. 574
