The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [813]
West, Gilbert (1703–56), author; close family connections with Lyttelton and Pitt the elder; friend of Pope; author of Observations on the History and Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (\j^j); translated a selection of the odes of Pindar (1749): 777
Westcote, William Henry Lyttelton, 1st Baron (1724–1808), subsequently Baron Lyttelton of Frankley; colonial governor and diplomat; brother of George Lyttelton; governor of South Carolina (1755–60); governor of Jamaica (appointed 1760–66); ambassador to Portugal (1767–70); lord of the Treasury (1777–82); acquainted with the Thrales and S.J.: 928
Wetherell, Dr Nathan, (1726–1807), master of University College, Oxford: 452, 491, 500, 934
Wharton, Revd Henry (1664–95), Church of England clergyman and historian; rector of Chartham, Kent (1689–95); edited and published The History of the Troubles and Tryal of… Dr. William Laud (1695); most important work was the Anglia sacra (1691), a collection of medieval manuscripts that chronicled the history of the English Church; prolific writer under the patronage of William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury: 389, 1038 n. 385
Wheeler, Dr Benjamin (c. 1733–83), regius professor of divinity and canon of Christ Church, Oxford: 722, 760
Whiston, John (1711–80), bookseller; established in Fleet Street, London; son of William Whiston; one of the printers of the votes of the House of Commons and one of the original publishers of priced catalogues; involved in promoting the New and General Biographical Dictionary (12 vols., 1761–2): 824
Whiston, William (1667–1752), natural philosopher and theologian; Newtonian; author of the millenarian cosmogony A New Theory of the Earth (1696); Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University (1702); Boyle lecturer (1707); entrepreneur of natural philosophy in London (1711–31); played an important role in early eighteenth-century attempts to determine longitude at sea; biblical student; greatly prolific writer: 296 n. b, 775 n. a,
Whitaker, Revd John (1735–1808), historian; author of The History of Manchester (2 vols., 1771–5); challenged Macpherson on the Ossian controversy; rector of Ruan Lanyhorn, Cornwall (1777); implicated in a later historical controversy by publishing Mary Queen of Scots Vindicated (1787); wrote variously in reaction to the French Revolution: 316 n. a, 704
White, Dr William (1748–1836), Protestant Episcopal bishop of Pennsylvania: 371
White, Mrs, S.J.’s servant: 989 n. a
White, Revd Henry (1761–1836): 971
Whitefield, Revd George (1714–70), Calvinistic Methodist leader; clashed with Wesley on the question of predestination, sceptical of his fellow Methodist’s ‘free grace’; preached from New England to Georgia (1739–41) and provided the prompt for the Great Awakening; chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon; condemned public amusements of all kinds; idolized and criticized in equal measure: 46, 302, 616, 744
Whitefoord, Caleb (1734–1810), wine merchant and diplomatist; author of a New Method of Reading Newspapers (1766) that amused and engaged Horace Walpole, S.J. and Goldsmith; friend of Reynolds and involved with the Royal Academy; friend of Franklin and acted as an intermediary between him and the British government in France (1782): 941
Whitehead, Paul (1710–74), satirist; author of The State Dunces (1733), a work both indebted and influential to Pope’s Dunciad, and the pugilist mock epic The Gymnasiad (1744); put into custody for his anti-Walpole satire Manners (1739); member of the Hell Fire Club; close friend of Hogarth; held in low esteem by S.J.: 73–4
Whitehead, William (1715–85), poet and playwright; employed by Pope to translate the first epistle of the Essay on Man into Latin verse; fellow of Clare College, Cambridge; author of the commercially successful tragedy The Roman Father (Drury Lane, 1750); Poet Laureate (1757), publishing