Calamities And Quarrels Of Authors Part 29

Warburton designates Akenside under the sneering appellative of "The Poet," and alluding to his "sublime account" of the use of ridicule, insultingly reminds him of "his Master," Shaftesbury, and of that school which made morality an object of taste, shrewdly hinting that Akenside was "a man of taste;" a new term, as we are to infer from Warburton, for "a Deist;" or, as Akenside had alluded to Spinoza, he might be something worse. The great critic loudly protested against the practice of ridicule; but, in attacking its advocate, he is himself an evidence of its efficacy, by keenly ridiculing "the Poet"

and his opinions. Dyson, the patron of Akenside, n.o.bly stepped forwards to rescue his Eagle, panting in the tremendous gripe of the critical Lion. His defence of Akenside is an argumentative piece of criticism on the nature of ridicule, curious, but wanting the graces of the genius who inspired it.[181]

I shall stop one moment, since it falls into our subject, to record this great literary battle on the use of ridicule, which has been fought till both parties, after having shed their ink, divide the field without victory or defeat, and now stand looking on each other.

The advocates for the use of RIDICULE maintain that it is a natural sense or feeling, bestowed on us for wise purposes by the Supreme Being, as are the other feelings of beauty and of sublimity;--the sense of beauty to detect the deformity, as the sense of ridicule the absurdity of an object: and they further maintain, that no real virtues, such as wisdom, honesty, bravery, or generosity, can be ridiculed.

The great Adversary of Ridicule replied that they did not dare to ridicule the virtues openly; but, by overcharging and distorting them they could laugh at leisure. "Give them other names," he says, "call them but Temerity, Prodigality, Simplicity, &c., and your business is done. Make them ridiculous, and you may go on, in the freedom of wit and humour (as Shaftesbury distinguishes ridicule), till there be never a virtue left to laugh out of countenance."

The ridiculers acknowledge that their favourite art may do mischief, when _dishonest men obtrude circ.u.mstances foreign to the object_. But, they justly urge, that the use of reason itself is full as liable to the same objection: grant Spinoza his false premises, and his conclusions will be considered as true. Dyson threw out an ingenious ill.u.s.tration. "It is so equally in the mathematics; where, in reasoning about a circle, if we join along with its real properties others that do not belong to it, our conclusions will certainly be erroneous. Yet who would infer from hence that _the manner of proof_ is defective or fallacious?"

Warburton urged the strongest _case_ against the use of ridicule, in that of Socrates and Aristophanes. In his strong and coa.r.s.e ill.u.s.tration he shows, that "by clapping a fool's coat on the most immaculate virtue, it stuck on Socrates like a San Benito, and at last brought him to his execution: it made the owner resemble his direct opposite; that character he was most unlike. The consequences are well known."

Warburton here adopted the popular notion, that the witty buffoon Aristophanes was the occasion of the death of the philosopher Socrates. The defence is skilful on the part of Dyson; and we may easily conceive that on so important a point Akenside had been consulted. I shall give it in his own words:--

"The Socrates of Aristophanes is as truly ridiculous a character as ever was drawn; but it is not the character of Socrates himself. The object was perverted, and the mischief which ensued was owing to the dishonesty of him who persuaded the people that that was the real character of Socrates, not from any error in the faculty of ridicule itself."--Dyson then states the fact as it concerned Socrates. "The real intention of the contrivers of this ridicule was not so much to mislead the people, by giving them a bad opinion of Socrates, as to sound what was at the time the general opinion of him, that from thence they might judge whether it would be safe to bring a direct accusation against him. The most effectual way of making this trial was by ridiculing him; for they knew, if the people saw his character in its true light, they would be displeased with the misrepresentation, and not endure the ridicule. On trial this appeared: the play met with its deserved fate; and, notwithstanding the exquisiteness of the wit, was absolutely _rejected_. A second attempt succeeded no better; and the abettors of the poet were so discouraged from pursuing their design against Socrates, that it was not till ABOVE TWENTY YEARS after _the publication of the play_ that they brought their accusation against him! It was not, therefore, ridicule that did, or could destroy Socrates: he was rather sacrificed for the right use of it himself, against the Sophists, who could not bear the test."

Thus, then, stands the argument.--Warburton, reasoning on the abuses of ridicule, has opened to us all its dangers. Its advocate concedes that Ridicule, to be a test of Truth, must not impose on us circ.u.mstances which are foreign to the object. No object can be ridiculed that is not ridiculous. Should this happen, then the ridicule is false; and, as such, can be proved as much as any piece of false reasoning. We may therefore conclude, that ridicule is a taste of congruity and propriety not possessed by every one; a test which separates truth from imposture; a talent against the exercise of which most men are interested to protest; but which, being founded on the const.i.tuent principles of the human mind, is often indulged at the very moment it is decried and complained of.

But we must not leave this great man without some notice of that peculiar style of controversy which he adopted, and which may be distinguished among our LITERARY QUARRELS. He has left his name to a school--a school which the more liberal spirit of the day we live in would not any longer endure. Who has not heard of THE WARBURTONIANS?

That SECRET PRINCIPLE which directed Warburton in all his works, and which we have attempted to pursue, could not of itself have been sufficient to have filled the world with the name of Warburton. Other scholars have published reveries, and they have pa.s.sed away, after showing themselves for a time, leaving no impression; like those coloured and shifting shadows on a wall, with which children are amused; but Warburton was a literary Revolutionist, who, to maintain a new order of things, exercised all the despotism of a perpetual dictator. The bold unblushing energy which could lay down the most extravagant positions, was maintained by a fierce dogmatic spirit, and by a peculiar style of mordacious contempt and intolerant insolence, beating down his opponents from all quarters with an animating shout of triumph, to encourage those more serious minds, who, overcome by his genius, were yet often alarmed by the ambiguous tendency of his speculations.[182]

The Warburtonian School was to be supported by the most licentious principles; by dictatorial arrogance,[183] by gross invective, and by airy sarcasm;[184] the bitter contempt which, with its many little artifices, lowers an adversary in the public opinion, was more peculiarly the talent of one of the aptest scholars, the cool, the keen, the sophistical Hurd. The lowest arts of confederacy were connived at by all the disciples,[185] prodigal of praise to themselves, and retentive of it to all others; the world was to be divided into two parts, the _Warburtonians_ and the _Anti_.

To establish this new government in the literary world, this great Revolutionist was favoured by Fortune with two important aids; the one was a _Machine_, by which he could wield public opinion; and the other a _Man_, who seemed born to be his minister or his viceroy.

The _machine_ was nothing less than the immortal works of Pope; as soon as Warburton had obtained a royal patent to secure to himself the sole property of Pope's works, the public were compelled, under the disguise of a Commentary on the most cla.s.sical of our Poets, to be concerned with all his literary quarrels, and have his libels and lampoons perpetually before them; all the foul waters of his anger were deposited here as in a common reservoir.[186]

Fanciful as was the genius of Warburton, it delighted too much in its eccentric motions, and in its own solitary greatness, amid abstract and recondite topics, to have strongly attracted the public attention, had not a party been formed around him, at the head of which stood the active and subtle Hurd; and amid the gradations of the votive brotherhood, the profound BALGUY,[187] the spirited BROWN,[188] till we descend--

To his tame jackal, parson TOWNE.[189]

_Verses on Warburton's late Edition._

This Warburtonian party reminds one of an old custom among our elder poets, who formed a kind of freemasonry among themselves, by adopting younger poets by the t.i.tle of their _sons_.--But that was a domestic society of poets; this, a revival of the Jesuitic order inst.i.tuted by its founder, that--

By him supported with a proper pride, They might hold all mankind as fools beside.

Might, like himself, teach each adopted son, 'Gainst all the world, to quote a Warburton.[190]

CHURCHILL'S "Fragment of a Dedication."

The character of a literary sycophant was never more perfectly exhibited than in Hurd. A Whig in principle, yet he had all a courtier's arts for Warburton; to him he devoted all his genius, though that, indeed, was moderate; aided him with all his ingenuity, which was exquisite; and lent his cause a certain delicacy of taste and cultivated elegance, which, although too prim and artificial, was a vein of gold running through his ma.s.s of erudition; it was Hurd who aided the usurpation of Warburton in the province of criticism above Aristotle and Longinus.[191] Hurd is justly characterised by Warton, in his Spenser, vol. ii. p. 36, as "the _most sensible_ and _ingenious_ of modern critics."--He was a lover of his studies; and he probably was sincere, when he once told a friend of the literary antiquary Cole, that he would have chosen not to quit the university, for he loved retirement; and on that principle Cowley was his favourite poet, which he afterwards showed by his singular edition of that poet. He was called from the cloistered shades to a.s.sume the honourable dignity of a Royal Tutor. Had he devoted his days to literature, he would have still enriched its stores. But he had other more supple and more serviceable qualifications. Most adroit was he in all the archery of controversy: he had the subtlety that can evade the aim of the a.s.sailant, and the slender dexterity, subst.i.tuted for vigour, that struck when least expected. The subaltern genius of Hurd required to be animated by the heroic energy of Warburton; and the careless courage of the chief wanted one who could maintain the unguarded pa.s.sages he left behind him in his progress.

Such, then, was WARBURTON, and such the quarrels of this great author.

He was, through his literary life, an adventurer, guided by that secret principle which opened an immediate road to fame. By opposing the common sentiments of mankind, he awed and he commanded them; and by giving a new face to all things, he surprised, by the appearances of discoveries. All this, so pleasing to his egotism, was not, however, fortunate for his ambition. To sustain an authority which he had usurped; to subst.i.tute for the taste he wanted a curious and dazzling erudition; and to maintain those reckless decisions which so often plunged him into perils, Warburton adopted his _system of Literary Quarrels_. These were the illegitimate means which raised a sudden celebrity, and which genius kept alive, as long as that genius lasted; but Warburton suffered that literary calamity, too protracted a period of human life: he outlived himself and his fame. This great and original mind sacrificed all his genius to that secret principle we have endeavoured to develope--it was a self-immolation!

The learned SELDEN, in the curious little volume of his "Table-Talk,"

has delivered to posterity a precept for the learned, which they ought to wear, like the Jewish phylacteries, as "a frontlet between their eyes." _No man is the wiser for his learning: it may administer matter to work in, or objects to work upon; but wit and wisdom are born with a man._ Sir THOMAS HANMER, who was well acquainted with Warburton, during their correspondence about Shakspeare, often said of him:--"The only use he could find in Mr. Warburton was _starting the game_; he was not to be trusted in _running it down_." A just discrimination!

His fervid curiosity was absolutely creative; but his taste and his judgment, perpetually stretched out by his system, could not save him from even inglorious absurdities!

Warburton, it is probable, was not really the character he appears. It mortifies the lovers of genius to discover how a natural character may be thrown into a convulsed unnatural state by some adopted system: it is this system, which, carrying it, as it were, beyond itself, communicates a more than natural, but a self-destroying energy. All then becomes reversed! The arrogant and vituperative Warburton was only such in his a.s.sumed character; for in still domestic life he was the creature of benevolence, touched by generous pa.s.sions. But in public life the artificial or the acquired character prevails over the one which nature designed for us; and by that all public men, as well as authors, are usually judged by posterity.

FOOTNOTES:

[141] One of his lively adversaries, the author of the "Canons of Criticism," observed the difficulty of writing against an author whose reputation so much exceeded the knowledge of his works. "It is my misfortune," says EDWARDS, "in this controversy, to be engaged with a person who is better known by his _name_ than his _works_; or, to speak more properly, whose _works are more known than read_."--_Preface to the Canons of Criticism._

[142] Aristotle's Rhetoric, B. III. c. 16.

[143] The materials for a "Life of Warburton" have been arranged by Mr. NICHOLS with his accustomed fidelity.--_See his Literary Anecdotes._

[144] It is probable I may have drawn my meteor from our volcanic author himself, who had his lucid moments, even in the deliriums of his imagination. Warburton has rightly observed, in his "Divine Legation," p. 203, that "_Systems_, _Schemes_, and _Hypotheses_, all bred of heat, in the warm regions of _Controversy_, like meteors in a troubled sky, have each its turn to _blaze_ and _fly_ away."

[145] It seems, even by the confession of a Warburtonian, that his master was of "a human size;" for when Bishop LOWTH rallies the Warburtonians for their subserviency and credulity to their master, he aimed a gentle stroke at Dr. BROWN, who, in his "Essays on the Characteristics," had poured forth the most vehement panegyric. In his "Estimate of Manners of the Times," too, after a long _tirade_ of their badness in regard to taste and learning, he thus again eulogizes his mighty master:--"Himself is abused, and his friends insulted for his sake, by those who never read his writings; or, if they did, could neither taste nor comprehend them; while every little aspiring or despairing scribbler eyes him as Ca.s.sius did Caesar: and whispers to his fellow--

'Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves.'

No wonder, then, if the malice of the Lilliputian tribe be bent against this dreaded GULLIVER; if they attack him with poisoned arrows, whom they cannot subdue by strength."

On this Lowth observes, that "this Lord Paramount in his pretensions _doth bestride the narrow world_ of literature, and has cast out his shoe over all the regions of science."

This leads to a ludicrous comparison of Warburton, with King Pichrochole and his three ministers, who, in URQUHART'S admirable version of the French wit, are Count Merdaille, the Duke of Smalltrash, and the Earl Swashbuckler, who set up for universal monarchy, and made an imaginary expedition through all the quarters of the world, as Rabelais records, and the bishop facetiously quotes. Dr. Brown afterwards seemed to repent his panegyric, and contrives to make his gigantic hero shrink into a moderate size. "I believe still, every little aspiring fellow continues thus to eye him. For myself, I have ever considered him as _a man_, yet considerable among his species, as the following part of the paragraph _clearly demonstrates_. I speak of him here as _a Gulliver_ indeed; yet still of _no more than human size_, and only apprehended to be of _colossal magnitude_ by certain of his Lilliputian enemies." Thus subtilely would poor Dr. Brown save appearances! It must be confessed that, in a dilemma, never was a giant got rid of so easily!--The plain truth, however, was, that Brown was then on the point of quarrelling with Warburton; for he laments, in a letter to a friend, that "he had not avoided all personal panegyric. I had thus saved myself the trouble of setting right a character which I far over-painted." A part of this letter is quoted in the "Biographia Britannica."

[146] "Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, not admitted into the collections of their respective works," itself a collection which our shelves could ill spare, though maliciously republished by Dr. PARR. The dedication by Parr stands unparalleled for comparative criticism. It is the eruption of a volcano; it sparkles, it blazes, and scatters light and destruction. How deeply ought we to regret that this Nazarite suffered his strength to be shorn by the Delilahs of spurious fame. Never did this man, with his gifted strength, grasp the pillars of a temple, to shake its atoms over Philistines; but pleased the childlike simplicity of his mind by pulling down houses over the heads of their unlucky inhabitants. He consumed, in local and personal literary quarrels, a genius which might have made the next age his own. With all the stores of erudition, and all the eloquence of genius, he mortified a country parson for his politics, and a London accoucheur for certain obstetrical labours performed on Horace; and now his collected writings lie before us, volumes unsaleable and unread. His insatiate vanity was so little delicate, as often to s.n.a.t.c.h its sweetmeat from a foul plate; it now appears, by the secret revelations in Griffith's own copy of his "Monthly Review," that the writer of a very elaborate article on the works of Dr. Parr, was no less a personage than the Doctor himself. His egotism was so declamatory, that it unnaturalized a great mind, by the distortions of Johnsonian mimicry; his fierceness, which was pushed on to brutality on the unresisting, retreated with a child's terrors when resisted; and the pomp of petty pride in table triumphs and evening circles, ill compensated for the lost century he might have made his own!

Lord o'er the greatest, to the least a slave, Half-weak, half-strong, half-timid, and half-brave; To take a compliment of too much pride, And yet most hurt when praises are denied.

Thou art so deep discerning, yet so blind, So learn'd, so ignorant, cruel, yet so kind; So good, so bad, so foolish, and so wise;-- By turns I love thee, and by turns despise.

MS. ANON. (said to be by the late Dr. HOMER.)

[147] The "Quarterly Review," vol. vii. p. 383.--So masterly a piece of criticism has rarely surprised the public in the leaves of a periodical publication. It comes, indeed, with the feelings of another age, and the reminiscences of the old and vigorous school. I cannot implicitly adopt all the sentiments of the critic, but it exhibits a highly-finished portrait, enamelled by the love of the artist.--This article was written by the late Dr. Whitaker, the historian of Craven, &c.

[148] When Warburton, sore at having been refused academical honours at Oxford, which were offered to Pope, then his fellow-traveller, and who, in consequence of this refusal, did himself not accept them--in his controversy with Lowth (then the Oxford Professor), gave way to his angry spirit, and struck at the University itself, for its political jesuitism, being a place where men "were taught to distinguish between _de facto_ and _de jure_," caustic was the retort.

Lowth, by singular felicity of application, touched on Warburton's original designation, in a character he hit on in Clarendon. After remonstrating with spirit and dignity on this petulant attack, which was not merely personal, Lowth continues:--"Had I not your lordship's example to justify me, I should think it a piece of extreme impertinence to inquire where YOU were bred; though one might justly plead, in excuse for it, a natural curiosity to know _where_ and _how_ such a phenomenon was produced. It is commonly said that your lordship's education was of that particular kind, concerning which it is a remark of that great judge of men and manners, Lord Clarendon (on whom you have, therefore, with a wonderful happiness of allusion, justness of application, and elegance of expression, conferred 'the unrivalled t.i.tle of the Chancellor of Human Nature'), that it peculiarly disposes men to be proud, insolent, and pragmatical." Lowth, in a note, inserts Clarendon's character of Colonel Harrison: "He had been bred up in the place of a clerk, under a lawyer of good account in those parts; which kind of education introduces men into the language and practice of business; and if it be not resisted by the great ingenuity of the person, inclines young men to more pride than any other kind of breeding, and disposes them to be pragmatical and insolent." "Now, my lord (Lowth continues), as you have in your whole behaviour, and in all your writings, remarkably distinguished yourself by your humility, lenity, meekness, forbearance, candour, humanity, civility, decency, good manners, good temper, moderation with regard to the opinions of others, and a modest diffidence of your own, this unpromising circ.u.mstance of your education is so far from being a disgrace to you, that it highly redounds to your praise."--_Lowth's Letter to the Author of the D. L._ p. 63.

Was ever weapon more polished and keen? This Attic style of controversy finely contrasts with the tasteless and fierce invective of the Warburtonians, although one of them is well known to have managed too adroitly the cutting instrument of irony; but the frigid malignancy of Hurd diminishes the pleasure we might find in his skill.

Warburton ill concealed his vexation in the contempt he vented in a letter to Hurd on this occasion. "All you say about Lowth's pamphlet breathes the purest spirit of friendship. His _wit_ and his _reasoning_, G.o.d knows, and I also, (as a certain critic said once in a matter of the like great importance), are much below the qualities that deserve those names."--He writes too of "this man's boldness in publishing his letters."--"If he expects an answer, he will certainly find himself disappointed; though I believe I could make _as good sport with this devil of a vice_, for the public diversion, as ever was made with him in the old Moralities."--But Warburton did reply! Had he ever possessed one feeling of taste, never would he have figured the elegant Lowth as this grotesque personage. He was, however, at that moment sharply stung!

This circ.u.mstance of _Attorneyship_ was not pa.s.sed over in Mallet's "Familiar Epistle to the Most Impudent Man Living."

Comparing, in the Spirit of "familiarity," Arnall, an impudent scribbling attorney and political scribe, with Warburton, he says, "You have been an attorney as well as he, but a little more impudent than he was; for Arnall never presumed to conceal his turpitude under the gown and the scarf." But this is mere invective!

[149] I have given a tempered opinion of his motive for this sudden conversion from Attorneyship to Divinity; for it must not be concealed, in our inquiry into Warburton's character, that he has frequently been accused of a more worldly one. He was so fierce an advocate for some important causes he undertook, that his sincerity has been liable to suspicion; the pleader, in some points, certainly acting the part of a sophist. Were we to decide by the early appearances of his conduct, by the rapid change of his profession, by his obsequious servility to his country squire, and by what have been termed the hazardous "fooleries in criticism, and outrages in controversy," which he systematically pursued, he looks like one not in earnest; and more zealous to maintain the character of his own genius, than the cause he had espoused. Leland once exclaimed, "What are we to think of the writer and his intentions? Is he really sincere in his reasonings?" Certain it is, his paradoxes often alarmed his friends, to repeat the words of a great critic, by "the absurdity of his criticism, the heterodoxy of his tenets, and the brutality of his invectives." Our Juvenal, who, whatever might be the vehemence of his declamation, reflected always those opinions which floated about him, has drawn a full-length figure. He accounts for Warburton's early motive in taking the ca.s.sock, as being

"------------thereto drawn By some faint omens of the Lawn, And on the truly Christian plan, To make himself a gentleman: A t.i.tle, in which Form arrayed him, Tho' Fate ne'er thought of when she made him.

To make himself a man of note, He in defence of Scripture wrote: So long he wrote, and long about it, That e'en believers 'gan to doubt it.

He wrote too of the Holy Ghost; Of whom, no more than doth a post, He knew; nor, should an angel show him, Would he or know, or choose to know him."

CHURCHILL'S "Duellist."

I would not insinuate that Warburton is to be ranked among the cla.s.s he so loudly denounced, that of "Free-thinkers;" his mind, warm with imagination, seemed often tinged with credulity. But from his want of sober-mindedness, we cannot always prove his earnestness in the cause he advocated. He often sports with his fancies; he breaks out into the most familiar levity; and maintains, too broadly, subtile and refined principles, which evince more of the political than the primitive Christian. It is certain his infidelity was greatly suspected; and Hurd, to pa.s.s over the stigma of Warburton's sudden conversion to the Church, insinuates that "_an early seriousness of mind_ determined him to the ecclesiastical profession."--"It may be so," says the critic in the "Quarterly Review," no languid admirer of this great man; "but the symptoms of that _seriousness were very equivocal afterwards_; and the _certainty of an early provision, from a generous patron in the country_, may perhaps be considered by those who are disposed to a.s.sign human conduct to ordinary motives, as quite adequate to the effect."

Dr. Parr is indignant at such surmises; but the feeling is more honourable than the decision! In an admirable character of Warburton in the "Westminster Magazine" for 1779, it is acknowledged, "at his outset in life he was suspected of being inclined to infidelity; and it was not till many years had elapsed, that the orthodoxy of his opinions was generally a.s.sented to." On this Dr. Parr observes, "Why Dr.

Warburton was _ever_ suspected of secret infidelity I know not. What he was _inclined to think_ on subjects of religion, before, perhaps, he had leisure or ability to examine them, depends only upon obscure surmise, or vague report." The words _inclined to think_ seems a periphrase for _secret infidelity_. Our critic attributes these reports to "an English dunce, whose blunders and calumnies are now happily forgotten, and repeated by a French buffoon, whose morality is not commensurate with his wit."--_Tracts_ by Warburton, &c., p. 186.