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Wakefield (GILBERT an English clergyman)

GILBERT, an English clergyman; born in Nottingham, England, Feb. 22, 1756; was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, of which he became fellow. He took orders, but renounced the Anglican communion, labored as classical tutor in dissenting academies at Warrington and Hackney, lay two years in Dorchester jail for a so-called seditious libel in answer to Bishop Watson, for which his political friends confriends soled him with a gift of $25,000. He published editions of Bion and Moschus, Vergil, Horace, and Lucretius; "Christian Writers of the Three First Centuries on the Person of Christ" (1784), left unfinished; "Inquiry into the Expediency and Propriety of Social Worship" (1791), the necessity for which he denied; "An Examination of Paine's Age of Reason" (1794); and "Silva Critica," WALCOTT a collection intended to illustrate the Scriptures from the stores of profane learning (1789-1795). He died in London, Sept. 9, 1801.