of the people and the idol of the City. Released by Chief-Justice
Pratt, he was next proceeded against for an obscene poem, the "Essay on
Woman." He fought a duel with Samuel Martin, a brother M.P., who had
insulted him, and was expelled the House in 1764. He then went to France
in the height of his popularity, having just obtained a verdict in his
favour upon the question of the warrant. On his return to England, he
daringly stood for the representation of London, and was elected for
Middlesex. Riots took place, a man was shot by the soldiers, and Wilkes
was committed to the King's Bench prison. After a long contest with the
Commons, Wilkes was expelled the House, and being re-elected for
Middlesex, the election was declared void.

Eventually Wilkes became Chamberlain of the City, lectured refractory
apprentices like a father, and tamed down to an ordinary man of the
world, still shameless, ribald, irreligious, but, as Gibbon says, "a
good companion with inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour, and
a great deal of knowledge." He quietly took his seat for Middlesex in
1782, and eight years afterwards the resolutions against him were erased
from the Journals of the House. He died in 1797, at his house in
Grosvenor Square. Wilkes' sallow face, sardonic squint, and projecting
jaw, are familiar to us from Hogarth's terrible caricature. He generally
wore the dress of a colonel of the militia--scarlet and buff, with a
cocked hat and rosette, bag wig, and military boots, and O'Keefe
describes seeing him walking in from his house at Kensington Gore,
disdaining all offers of a coach. Dr. Franklin, when in England,
describes the mob stopping carriages, and compelling their inmates to
shout "Wilkes and liberty!" For the first fifteen miles out of London on
the Winchester road, he says, and on nearly every door or
window-shutter, "No. 45" was chalked. By many Tory writers Wilkes is
considered latterly to have turned his coat, but he seems to us to have
been perfectly consistent to the end. He was always a Whig with
aristocratic tastes. When oppression ceased he ceased to protest. Most
men grow more Conservative as their minds weaken, but Wilkes was always
resolute for liberty.

A few anecdotes of Wilkes are necessary for seasoning to our chapter.

Horne Tooke having challenged Wilkes, who was then sheriff of London and
Middlesex, received the following laconic reply: "Sir, I do not think it
my business to cut the throat of