WHATELY, Thomas, uncle of the archbishop, was private secretary to Mr. Grenville, and afterwards under-secretary of state to Lord Suffolk. He was the author of a well-known treatise on modern gardening, and an exceedingly able critical work, entitled "Remarks on some of the Characters of Shakspeare," a new edition of which, with a characteristic preface, has been published by the archbishop. The famous letters from Governor Hutchinson and Lieutenant-governor Oliver of Massachusetts, which were made public by Franklin, and excited a fierce dispute both in this country and in the American colonies, were addressed to Mr. Thomas Whately, and were purloined from the public offices, or from his own house, at or after the period of his death, which took place in 1772.—J. T.
WHEAN, Degory, a historian, born at Jacobston in Cornwall in 1573, and educated at Oxford. Returning from a continental tour he found a patron in Lord Chandos; and on the death of that nobleman he contracted an intimacy with the celebrated Thomas Allen, by whose interest Camden made him the first reader of the lecture which he had established in the university. Whean published several works on civil and ecclesiastical history, and died in 1647.—W. J. P.
WHEATLEY, Charles, an English divine, was born in London in 1686. He was educated at St. John's college, Oxford, of which he became a fellow. He was appointed lecturer in the church of St. Laurence, Mildred, in the Poultry, London, and finally vicar of Brent and Furneaux-Pelham in Hertfordshire. He died in 1742. Besides his "Nicene and Athanasian Creeds" —preached originally at the Lady Moyer's lecture, and published in 1738—and a volume of sermons, his principal work is his "Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer," a treatise which has maintained its popularity to the present time. Three volumes of his sermons were published after his death by Dr. Berriman in 1746.—J. E.
WHEATLEY, Francis, R.A., an English landscape and figure painter of great ability, but of loose character, was born in London in 1747. He was the friend and assistant of Mortimer. An intrigue caused him to leave London for Dublin, from which his impudence drove him back to London. His abilities, however, secured his election as a member of the Royal Academy in 1791. He died in 1801. Among his most successful works are mentioned the "London Riots of 1780," engraved by James Heath, but accidentally burnt in the engraver's house; also a series of "London Cries." Wheatley executed many drawings in water-colour.—R. N. W.
WHEATON, Henry, an eminent American writer on international law, was born in 1785 at Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. His father, who had been a successful merchant, was president of the Rhode Island branch of the United States Bank. Wheaton was educated for and admitted to the bar, when in 1806 he came to Europe, studying French and the Code-Napoleon in France, and the civil law of England in London. On his return to America he practised his profession at Providence until 1813, when he settled at New York, where he edited for a period the National Advocate, one of the organs of the cabinet. Having been during the previous year division judge advocate of the army, in 1815 he was appointed one of the judges of the marine court, and published in that year his "Digest of the Law of Maritime Captures or Prizes," a work highly valued by American jurists. He became, in 1816, reporter of the supreme court of the United States, a position which he retained until 1827. His published reports for the period form a work of great authority. In 1827, having been for two years member of a commission for the revision of the laws of the state of New York, he was appointed first chargé d'affaires at Copenhagen, where, besides performing important diplomatic duties, he studied the Scandinavian literature and history. One of the results of these studies was his "History of the Northmen," London, 1831. In 1835 he was made minister resident at Berlin, and in 1837 was raised to the rank of minister plenipotentiary. It was in 1836 that his well-known and standard work, "The Elements of International Law," appeared. In 1841 was published his "Histoire du progrès du droit des gens en Europe depuis la paix de Westphalie jusqu'au congrès de Vienne," composed in French, and forming the basis of the work which he published in English in 1845 as "The History of the Law of Nations," &c. Recalled in 1846 by President Polk, Wheaton was about to commence his duties as professor of international law at Harvard university, when he died suddenly on the 11th March, 1848. Among his other works, not already mentioned, are a "Life of William Pinckney," 1826, and an "Inquiry into the British claim of right of search to American ships," 1842.—F. E.
* WHEATSTONE, Sir Charles, a distinguished man of science, born at Gloucester in 1802. Since 1834 he has been professor of experimental philosophy in King's college, London. He is a fellow of the Royal Society, and of various other scientific bodies, and a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences. His physical researches have been numerous and varied. They comprise some very important investigations into the laws of the sonorous vibrations of solid bodies, and the physiology of vision; the latter comprehending amongst other results the first suggestion of the stereoscope. In 1833 he invented and executed that wonderful instrument, in which a mirror spinning rapidly about a transverse axis is applied to the measurement of the velocity of an electric discharge. (As to the subsequent application of the same principle to the measurement of the velocity of light, see Foucault.) In 1838, in conjunction with Mr. Cooke, he invented and carried into operation the first practical electric telegraph in Europe. He has since invented many improvements in electric telegraphy, but more especially in 1858, that of his automatic printing telegraph, capable of transmitting signals at the rate of six hundred letters per minute; the more recent magne o-alphabetical telegraph, since most extensively used throughout the kingdom for the purposes of private telegraphic communication; and in 1862 completed a self-acting magneto-letter-printing telegraph. He is also the inventor of the magneto-exploding apparatus, the concertina, harmonium, and other useful apparatus. He received the honour of knighthood in 1868.—R.
WHEELER, Thomas, an English botanist, was born in London in 1754, and died in 1847. His elementary education was conducted at St. Paul's school, and he afterwards studied medicine at St. Thomas' hospital, London. He succeeded Sir William Curtis as lecturer on botany to the Society of Apothecaries, a situation which he filled for forty years. In 1800 he became apothecary of Christ's hospital, and afterwards of St. Bartholomew's.—J. H. B.
WHELER or WHEELER, Sir George, a learned English traveller, born at Breda in Holland in 1650, where his parents were exiles for their adhesion to the cause of Charles I. He was educated at Oxford, and after leaving the university commenced his travels in company with Dr. James Spore of Lyons. Together they took a voyage from Venice to Constantinople, through Asia Minor, and from Zante through several parts of Greece to Athens, and thence to Corinth, &c. Their principal object was to copy the inscriptions and describe the antiquities and coins of Asia Minor. Wheler, on his return to England, presented the valuable MSS. which he had collected to Lincoln college, Oxford. He then took orders, and in 1684 was installed in a prebend of the cathedral of Durham. He published an account of his travels with Dr. Spore, and several other works. He died in 1724, and was buried near the tomb of the venerable Bede in Durham cathedral.—W. J. P.
WHETHAMSTEDE, John, a learned abbot of St. Albans, was ordained priest in 1382. He was author of a chronicle from 1441 to 1461, which gives an excellent description, amongst other things, of the two battles of St. Albans. Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, was fond of visiting the monastery, and encouraged Whethamstede in collecting and transcribing valuable MSS. The abbot employed Lydgate in 1430 to translate the life of St. Alban from the Latin into English verse, so that his monks might thereby familiarize themselves with the particulars of their saint's history. Whethamstede erected the beautiful stone shrine over the tomb of Duke Humphrey in St. Albany's abbey church. After having been eighty-two years in holy orders, Whethamstede died in 1464, above one hundred years old.—F.
WHETSTONE, George, an English writer of the Elizabethan age. From the dedication of his play, "Promos and Cassandra," it appears that he was related to William Fleetwood, recorder of London. He endeavoured, but without success, to gain a footing at court. Having spent whatever fortune he had, his next step was to join the army on foreign service. Though he behaved gallantly, and earned a title to increase of pay, he returned to England as poor as ever. He then became a farmer, and achieving no more success than might have been expected from a roving soldier, he became dependent on his friends until he joined the expedition to Newfoundland under
