My main impression of Pilkington is one of personal animus for his treatment of his wife, but abstracted from this his early career is that of a conventional Walpolian-careerist priest-poet, writing amatory verse to his future wife and birthday odes for George II. It is interesting that his publishing career has a very long hiatus from 1734 to 1770, when Pilkington moves into a completely different realm by writing an extensive biographical dictionary of painters.