[D.D.]. Author of a heroic poem called the Epigoniad, born in the parish of Dalmeny in West Lothian in Scotland, in October 1721. His father was a small farmer, and was not very fortunate in his worldly affairs. He gave his son, however, a liberal education, the early part of which he received at the parish school of Dalmeny, and at the age of thirteen he was sent to the university of Edinburgh, where he was soon distinguished as a young man of genius. Among his fellow-students were Dr. Robertson the historian, Mr. Home the poet, and some other eminent literary characters. He became acquainted also, in the course of his education, with David Hume and Dr. Adam Ferguson.
Before he completed his studies at the university, his father died, leaving him only the stock and unexpired lease of his farm, with the care of three sisters, one of whom being afterwards married to an experienced farmer, Wilkie availed himself of his practical knowledge. He formed a system of farming which fully answered his own expectations, and secured to him the approbation of all his neighbours. After becoming a preacher in the church of Scotland, he still continued his former mode of living, cultivating his farm, reading the classics, and occasionally preaching for the ministers in the neighbourhood. In 1753, he was presented to the church of Ratho by the earl of Lauderdale, who was sensible of his worth, and admired his genius. The duties of his new office he discharged with fidelity, and was celebrated for his impressive mode of preaching, while he did not neglect the amusements of husbandry, and the study of the belles lettres. He published his Epigoniad in the year 1757, the result of fourteen years study, and a second edition of it was called for in 1759, in which year he was chosen professor of natural philosophy in the university of St. Andrews. His whole fortune, when he removed to this place, did not exceed 200l. which he laid out in the purchase of a few acres of land in the vicinity of the city. He lived in the university in the same studious and retired manner as he had done at Ratho. In the year 1768 he published a volume of fables of no great celebrity, prior to which the university conferred on him the degree of D.D. He died, after a lingering illness, on the 10th of October 1772.
The manners of Dr. Wilkie were in many respects very singular, and in some quite disgusting. For the purpose of promoting perspiration, and thus removing an aguish complaint, with which he had been seized during his residence at Ratho, he generally slept in winter under no fewer than twenty-four blankets. His aversion to clean linen is altogether unaccountable. It is said that when he slept from home, he not only stipulated for the proper quantity of blankets, but requested to be indulged with sheets which had been previously used by some other person. It is scarcely necessary to add, that his dress was slovenly in the extreme. It is somewhat remarkable, that Dr. Wilkie never could read aloud the smoothest verse in such a manner as to preserve either the measure or the sense, although his own compositions in verse are greatly distinguished by their smoothness and elegance.
It is said that Dr. Wilkie, from having studied Homer with great attention, was led to project an epic poem on the model of that ancient poet. The subject of it is drawn from the fourth book of the Iliad, where Sthenelus gives Agamemnon a short account of the sacking of Thebes; and as that city was taken by the sons of those who had fallen before it, our author gave to his poem the title of Epigoniad, from the Greek word επιγονος, signifying descendants. This title, it is supposed, is not very appropriate, and is not altogether free from quaintness. The subject of the poem has not been selected with much judgement; for the learned reader will prefer studying the manners and actions of ancient heroes in the sublime descriptions of Homer and Virgil, and others will be little interested in scenes and characters so different from those with which they are familiar, and so far removed from their own times. Accordingly, the Epigoniad, with all its merit as an epic poem (and it is not destitute of many of the essential requisites of that species of poetical composition), is now little known. See also Literary Criticism.
