Posterity
By his will, according to the epitaph on his monument in St. Andrew's parish church, Wildman directed:
"that if his executors should think fit there should be some stone of small price set near to his ashes, to signify, without foolish flattery, to his posterity, that in that age there lived a man who spent the best part of his days in prisons, without crimes, being conscious of no offence towards man, for that he so loved his God that he could serve no man's will, and wished the liberty and happiness of his country and all mankind".
Baron Macaulay was less favourable. After describing a fanatical hatred to monarchy as the mainspring of Wildman's career, he adds:
"With Wildman's fanaticism was joined a tender care for his own safety. He had a wonderful skill in grazing the edge of treason. … Such was his cunning, that though always plotting, though always known to be plotting, and though long malignantly watched by a vindictive government, he eluded every danger, and died in his bed, after having seen two generations of his accomplices die on the gallows".
There is an engraved portrait of Wildman by William Faithorne, with the motto "Nil Admirari".
Read more about this topic: John Wildman
Famous quotes containing the word posterity:
“Both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“When posterity judges our actions here it will perhaps see us not as unwilling prisoners but as men who for whatever reason preferred to remain non-contributing individuals on the edge of society.”
—George Lucas (b. 1944)