much altered and enlarged, 1848. 9. ‘Life of Jeremy Taylor,’ 1847; 2nd ed. 1848 (cf. Phillips, Essays from the Times, 2nd ser., pp. 103–17). 10. ‘Precious Stones from Prose Writers of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries,’ 1850. 11. ‘Poets of the Nineteenth Century,’ 1857, an interesting collection; the original edition is finely illustrated by engravings by the brothers Dalziel, after Foster, Gilbert, Tenniel, Millais, and other artists. 12. ‘English Sacred Poetry,’ 1862; 2nd ed. 1883.
Willmott edited for Routledge's ‘British Poets’ the poems of Gray, Parnell (cf. Notes and Queries, 2nd ser., x. 141–2), Collins, Green, and Warton (1854 and 1883), the works of George Herbert in prose and verse (1854; Herbert's poems, with Willmott's memoir and notes, were also published at Boston, U.S., in 1855), the poems of Akenside and Dyer (1855), Cowper (1855), Burns (1856; reissued in 1866), Percy's ‘Reliques’ (1857; also published with a slightly altered title-page), and Fairfax's translation of Tasso's ‘Jerusalem Delivered’ (1858). He edited selections from the poetry of Wordsworth (1859) and James Montgomery (1859), and the poems of Goldsmith (1860). His ‘Dream of the Poets at Cambridge, from Spenser to Gray,’ is inserted in J. J. Smith's ‘Cambridge Portfolio’ (i. 47–53), and he contributed notes to Pegge's ‘Anecdotes of the English Language’ (1844 ed.).
An engraved frontispiece of Willmott, by H. B. Hall, is in Christmas's ‘Preachers and Preaching’ (1858).
[Gent. Mag. 1861 ii. 338, 1863 ii. 241–2; Welch's Harrow School Reg. p. 71; Kettle's Memoirs of C. Boner, 1871, i. 109; information from Mr. W. Aldis Wright of Trinity College, Cambridge, and from the Rev. C. A. Whittuck of Bearwood.]
WILLOBIE, HENRY (1674.M596?), eponymous hero of 'Willobies Avisa.' [See Willoughby.]
WILLOCK or WILLOCKS, JOHN (d. 1585), Scottish reformer, was a native of Ayrshire, but nothing is known of his parentage. He was educated at the university of Glasgow, and for some time was a friar in Ayr, according to Archbishop Spotiswood of the Franciscan, but according to Bishop Leslie of the Dominican order. Becoming, however, a convert to the doctrines of the early reformers, he some time before 1541 relinquished the monastic habit and went to London, where he became preacher at St. Catherine's Church, and chaplain to the Duke of Suffolk, father of Lady Jane Grey. On the accession of Mary he in 1553 resigned his charge, and, retiring to the continent, commenced to practise as a physician at Emden in Friesland. In 1555, and again in 1556, he was sent to Scotland on a commission to the queen regent from the Duchess of Friesland; but according to Knox his principal purpose in visiting Scotland was ‘to assaye what God wald wirk to him in his native country’ (Works, i. 245). While there he was present at the supper in the house of John Erskine (1509–1591) [q. v.], laird of Dun, when a final resolution was come to by the leading reformers against attendance at the mass (ib. p. 247). After returning to Friesland in 1557, he finally settled in Scotland in 1558, when, although ‘he contracted a dangerous sickness,’ he held meetings with several of the nobility, barons, and gentlemen, ‘teaching and exhorting from his bed’ (ib. p. 256); and, according to Knox, it was the encouragement and exhortations of Willock in Dundee and Edinburgh that made ‘the brethren’ begin ‘to deliberate on some public reformation,’ and resolve to send to the queen regent an ‘oration and petition’ on the subject (ib. p. 301).
Afterwards Willock went to Ayr, where, under the protection of the Earl of Glencairn, he preached regularly in St. John's Church. On 2 Feb. 1558–9 he was indicted for heresy before the queen regent and her council, and for failing to appear and continuing to preach at Ayr he was outlawed on 10 May following. In March 1559 a disputation was proposed between him and Quentin Kennedy, abbot of Crossraguel, at Ayr, but as they failed to agree on the method of interpreting scripture it did not take place (see correspondence between them in appendix to Keith's Hist. of Scotland, App. pp. 193–9, and in the Wodrow Miscellany). The sentence of outlawry of him and others was passed, notwithstanding the assembly of a large body of armed reformers at Perth, to whom a promise had been made that Willock and his friends would not be further molested; but the outlawry could not be rendered effective. Willock had come to Perth in company with the Earl of Glencairn, and while there he and Knox had an interview with Argyll and Lord James Stewart (afterwards Earl of Moray), from whom they received an assurance that should the queen regent depart from her agreement they would ‘with their whole powers’ assist and concur ‘with their brethren in all time to come’ (Knox, i. 342).
After the destruction of the monasteries at Perth, which followed the breach of agreement by the queen regent, Willock and Knox towards the close of June 1559
