DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 8 ) Tt seemed as if the power of the Crown must anni- hilate the liberties of the people. Tt was necessary to devote so much of our limited time to these introductory remarks, in order clearly to reveal the political condition of the country in which John Wilkes, the subject of this lecture, was destined to effect so prominent and efficient a change. By a singular freak of fortune distinction was thrust upon him, and he unwittingly became the chief instrument in bringing about some of the greatest advances the Constitution ever made. The son of a wealthy distiller, whose family had resided at Leighton Buzzard for upwards of a cen- tury, John Wilkes was born in London on the 17th October, 1727. His early teaching was acquired at Aylesbury, at the school of Mr. Leeson, a Presby- terian clergyman. It was at Aylesbury that, at the age of twenty-two, he met and married an heiress, Miss Mead, who was ten years his senior ; and there, too, his daughter, and only child, was born. Wilkes and his wife resided at the Prebendal House, where his statuette may still be seen. But the narrow limits of a county town were unable to satisfy the buoyant spirits of the young man. Partly to free himself from the society of his mother-in-law, partly to use his newly acquired for- tune in a manner more congenial to his tastes and ambition, he removed to London; but remained