1FILBERFORCE
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WILKESBARRE
has been built. The Isle has long been a favorite place for tourists, and there are fashionable watering places at Cowes, Ryde and other places. Farming, sheepraising, shipbuilding and cement-making are carried on. Vespasian conquered the Celts of the Isle of Wight in A. D. 43. From the time of Henry VII it was ruled by a royal captain or governor. Charles I was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle, a fine old ruin, the inner walls of which were built in the nth century. Near Brading are the remains of a Roman villa. Population 86,000.
Wil'berforce, William, an English philanthropist, was born at Hull, Aug. 24, 1759. He attended Cambridge University, and in 1780 was elected to the house of commons, where he became a friend of Pitt. In 1787 he first began to stir up opinion against the slave-trade, in which he was seconded by Pitt and Thomas Clarkson. Clarkson carried on the work in the country, while Wilberforce en-deavcJred to gain the 'house of commons. By 1789 he succeeded in getting the subject before the house, but the friends of the planters were too strong, and the matter was postponed. In 1791 he brought it to a vote, but the motion for abolition was lost. He never ceased his efforts, but it was not till 1807, a year after Pitt's death, that the first great step toward doing away with slavery (q. v.) was taken, and it was not till a month after his own death that the emancipation bill, which owed so much to his efforts, was passed. Wilberforce also had a leading part in religious measures in Parliament and in religious work out of it. He died on July 29, 1833, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a monument has been set up to his memory. Consult Life by his sons.
Wil'cox, Ella (Wheeler), was born in 1855 in Johnstown Center, Wisconsin. As early as 14 she wrote poetry that was accepted by the press, and before she was 20 she had secured more than local celebrity. She attended the University of Wisconsin in 1884, but did not graduate. Her early years were a struggle against poverty. She married Robert M. Wilcox, and thus became a resident of Short Beach, Connecticut, where she still lives. She is most widely known through her articles written for The New York Journal (American) and for The Chicago American. But in the following collections of poems there may be elements that will secure her more permanent fame: Every-Day Thoughts, Poems of Passion, Poems of Pleasure, Poems of Power, Kingdom of Love and Three Women. Her prose includes A Double Life and Was it Suicide? In these her work, as she has said, consists in putting philosophy, religion, morality, psychology and science on a common-sense plane for everyday use." Perhaps this
purpose is best realized in. A Woman of the World. This is a series of letters, written to people young and old, at important moments in their careers. Her poetry, when it deals with everyday subjects, sometimes has much melody, aptness and sweetness; but the attempts to reach the realms of intense passion or of higher speculation are marked, as a rule, by a loss of these qualities and by failure to say anything of much significance. Her prose contains practical wisdom, and should serve to break down some of the intellectual barriers that her readers face. Her philosophy is one of optimism and even of exhilaration. For her estimate of herself see The Cosmopolitan for December, 1906.
Wilhelmina (vH'hel-me'nd}, Helena Pauline Maria, queen of the Netherlands, was born at The Hague, Holland, Aug. 31, 1880, and is the only child of the late King William III and Princess Emma, his second wife, daughter of Prince George Victor of Waldeck. She succeeded to the throne on the death of her father, Nov. 23, 1890, though she only came of legal age eight years later (1898) when she was crowned queen. On Feb. 7, IQOI, she married Prince Henry, youngest son of the late grandduke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Queen Wilhelmina is the fourth in the list of sovereigns of the Netherlands of the house of Orange since the reconstruction of the kingdom by the congress of Vienna (1814-5). Her Majesty possesses simple tastes, and is an accomplished linguist and experienced horsewoman.
Wilkes, Charles, an American naval officer, was born at New York in 1801." At 15 he entered the navy. In 1826 he was made lieutenant, and four years later was attached to the naval bureau of charts and instruments at Washington. Here he made the first astronomical observations in America. In 1838 he was given command of a squadron of six ships, with which he surveyed the Samoan Islands, discovered other Pacific Islands and the Antarctic continent, and explored the Fiji Islands. On coming back to Washington he published his Narr^-tiye of the United States Exploring Expedition, and was made a commander. In 1861, as captain of the United States steamer San Jacinto, he seized the Confederate commissioners to England — Mason and Slidell — on board the British steamer Trent, and carried them to Boston. This was the Trent affair between the United States and England, and resulted in the commissioners being set free. In 1862 Captain Wilkes was made commodore. He died at Washington, D. C.f Feb. 8, 1877.
Wilkes'barre, Pa., county-seat of Lu-zerne County, on the north branch of Susque-hanna River, in Wyoming Valley, 98 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The city is built partly on the bottom-lands and partly
