Calamities And Quarrels Of Authors Part 31

to prove--it was a strange sight to behold a bishop seeming to deny so rational and religious a creed! Even Dr. Balguy confessed to Warburton, that "there was one thing in the argument of the 'Divine Legation' that stuck more with candid men than all the rest--how a religion without a future state could be worthy of G.o.d!" This Warburton promised to satisfy, by a fresh appendix. His volatile genius, however, was condemned to "the pelting of a merciless storm." Lowth told him--"You give yourself out as _demonstrator_ of the _divine legation_ of Moses; it has been often demonstrated before; a young student in theology might undertake to give a better--that is, a more satisfactory and irrefragable demonstration of it in five pages than you have done in five volumes."--Lowth's "Letter to Warburton," p. 12.

[164] Hurd was the son of a Staffordshire farmer, and was placed by him at Rugely, from whence he was removed to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. At the age of twenty-six he published a pamphlet ent.i.tled "Remarks on a late Book ent.i.tled 'An Inquiry into the Rejection of the Christian Miracles by the Heathens, by William Weston,'" which met with considerable attention. In 1749, on the occasion of publishing a commentary on Horace's "Ars Poetica," he complimented Warburton so strongly as to ensure his favour. Warburton returned it by a puff for Hurd in his edition of Pope, and the two became fast friends. It was a profitable connexion to Hurd, for by the intercession of Warburton he was appointed one of the Whitehall preachers, a preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and Archdeacon of Gloucester. He repaid Warburton by constant praises in print, and so far succeeded with that vain man, that when he read the dedication he made to him of his "Commentary on the Epistle to Augustus,"

he wrote to him with mock humility--"I will confess to you how much satisfaction the groundless part of it, that which relates to myself, gave me." When Dr. Jortin very properly spoke of Warburton with less of subserviency than the overbearing bishop desired, Hurd at once came forward to fight for Warburton in print, in a satirical treatise on "The Delicacy of Friendship," which highly delighted his patron, who at once wrote to Dr. Lowth, stating him to be "a man of very superior talents, of genius, learning, and virtue; indeed, a princ.i.p.al ornament of the age he lives in." Hurd was made Bishop of Lichfield in 1775, and of Winchester in 1779.

He died in the year 1808.--ED.

[165] The Attic irony was translated into plain English, in "Remarks on Dr. Warburton's Account of the Sentiments of the Early Jews," 1757; and the following rules for all who dissented from Warburton are deduced:--"You must not write on the same subject that he does. You must not glance at his arguments, even without naming him or so much as referring to him. If you find his reasonings ever so faulty, you must not presume to furnish him with better of your own, even though you prove, and are desirous to support his conclusions. When you design him a compliment, you must express it in full form, and with all the circ.u.mstance of panegyrical approbation, without impertinently qualifying your civilities by a.s.signing a reason why you think he deserves them, as this might possibly be taken for a hint that you know something of the matter he is writing about as well as himself. You must never call any of his _discoveries_ by the name of _conjectures_, though you allow them their full proportion of elegance, learning, &c.; for you ought to know that this capital genius never proposed anything to the judgment of the public (though ever so new and uncommon) with diffidence in his life. Thus stands the decree prescribing our demeanour towards this sovereign in the Republic of Letters, as we find it promulged, and bearing date at the palace of Lincoln's Inn, Nov. 25, 1755."--From whence Hurd's "Seventh Dissertation" was dated.

[166] Gibbon's "Critical Observations on the Design of the Sixth Book of the aeneid." Dr. Parr considers this clear, elegant, and decisive work of criticism, as a complete refutation of Warburton's discovery.

[167] It is curious enough to observe that Warburton himself, acknowledging this to be a paradox, exultingly exclaims, "Which, _like so many others_ I have had the ODD FORTUNE to advance, will be seen to be only another name for Truth." This has all the levity of a sophist's language! Hence we must infer that some of the most important subjects could not be understood and defended, but by Warburton's "_odd fortune_!"

It was this levity of ideas that raised a suspicion that he was not always sincere. He writes, in a letter, of "living in mere spite, to rub another volume of the 'Divine Legation' in the noses of bigots and zealots." He employs the most ludicrous images, and the coa.r.s.est phrases, on the most solemn subjects. In one of his most unlucky paradoxes with Lowth, on the age and style of the writings of Job, he accuses that elegant scholar of deficient discernment; and, in respect to style, as not "distinguishing partridge from horseflesh;" and in quoting some of the poetical pa.s.sages, of "paying with an old song," and "giving rhyme for reason." Alluding to some one of his adversaries, whom he calls "the weakest, as well as the wickedest of all mankind," he employs a striking image--"I shall hang him and his fellows, as they do vermin in a warren, and leave them to posterity, to stink and blacken in the wind."

[168] Warburton, in this work (the "Doctrine of Grace,") has a curious pa.s.sage, too long to quote, where he observes, that "The Indian and Asiatic eloquence was esteemed hyperbolic and puerile by the more phlegmatic inhabitants of Rome and Athens: and the Western eloquence, in its turn, frigid or insipid, to the hardy and inflamed imaginations of the East. The same expression, which in one place had the utmost simplicity, had in another the utmost sublime." The jackal, too, echoes the roar of the lion; for the polished Hurd, whose taste was far more decided than Warburton's, was bold enough to add, in his Letter to Leland, "That which is thought supremely _elegant_ in one country, pa.s.ses in another for _finical_; while what in this country is accepted under the idea of _sublimity_, is derided in that other as no better than _bombast_." So unsettled were the _no-taste_ of Warburton, and the _prim-taste_ of Hurd!

[169] The Letter to Leland is characterised in the "Critical Review"

for April, 1765, as the work of "a preferment-hunting toad-eater, who, while his patron happened to go out of his depth, tells him that he is treading good ground; but at the same time offers him the use of a cork-jacket to keep him above water."

[170] Dr. Thomas Leland was born in Dublin in 1722, and was educated in Trinity College, in that city. Having obtained a Fellowship there, he depended on that alone, and devoted a long life to study, and the production of various historical and theological works; as well as a "History of Ireland,"

published in 1773. He died in 1785.--ED.

[171] In a rough attack on Warburton, respecting Pope's privately printing 1500 copies of the "Patriot King" of Bolingbroke, which I conceive to have been written by Mallet, I find a particular account of the manner in which the "Essay on Man"

was written, over which Johnson seems to throw great doubts.

The writer of this angry epistle, in addressing Warburton, says: "If you were as intimate with Mr. Pope as you pretend, you must know the truth of a fact which several others, as well as I, who never had the honour of a personal acquaintance with Lord Bolingbroke or Mr. Pope, have heard. The fact was related to me by a certain Senior Fellow of one of our Universities, who was very intimate with Mr. Pope. He started some objections, one day, at Mr. Pope's house, to the doctrine contained in the Ethic Epistles: upon which Mr. Pope told him that he would soon convince him of the truth of it, by laying the argument at large before him; for which purpose he gave him _a large prose ma.n.u.script_ to peruse, telling him, at the same time, the author's name. From this perusal, whatever other conviction the doctor might receive, he collected at least this: that Mr. Pope had from his friend not only the _doctrine_, but even the _finest and strongest ornaments of his Ethics_. Now, if this fact be true (as I question not but you know it to be so), I believe no man of candour will attribute such merit to Mr. Pope as you would insinuate, for acknowledging the wisdom and the friendship of the man who was his instructor in philosophy; nor consequently that this acknowledgment, and the _dedication of his own system, put into a poetical dress by Mr. Pope_, laid his lordship under the necessity of never resenting any injury done to him by the poet afterwards. Mr. Pope told no more than literal truth, in calling Lord Bolingbroke his _guide, philosopher, and friend_." The existence of this very ma.n.u.script volume was authenticated by Lord Bathurst, in a conversation with Dr.

Blair and others, where he said, "he had read the MS. in Lord Bolingbroke's handwriting, and was at a loss whether most to admire the elegance of Lord Bolingbroke's prose, or the beauty of Mr. Pope's verse."--See the letter of Dr. Blair in "Boswell's Life of Johnson."

[172] Of many instances, the following one is the most curious. When Jarvis published his "Don Quixote," Warburton, who was prompt on whatever subject was started, presented him with "A Dissertation on the Origin of the Books of Chivalry." When it appeared, it threw Pope, their common friend, into raptures.

He writes, "I knew you as certainly as the ancients did the G.o.ds, by the first pace and the very gait." True enough!

Warburton's strong genius stamped itself on all his works. But neither the translating painter, nor the simple poet, could imagine the heap of absurdities they were admiring! Whatever Warburton here a.s.serted was false, and whatever he conjectured was erroneous; but his blunders were quite original.--The good sense and knowledge of Tyrwhitt have demolished the whole edifice, without leaving a single brick standing. The absurd rhapsody has been worth preserving, for the sake of the masterly confutation: no uncommon result of Warburton's literary labours!

It forms the concluding note in Shakspeare's _Love's Labour Lost_.

[173] Of THEOBALD he was once the companion, and to Sir THOMAS HANMER he offered his notes for his edition. [Hanmer's Shakspeare was given in 1742 to the University of Oxford, for its benefit, and was printed at the University Press, under the management of Dr. Smith and Dr. Shippon. Sir Thomas paid the expenses of the engravings by Gravelot prefixed to each play. The edition was published in 4to. in 1744, it was printed on the "finest royal paper," and does not warrant the severity of Pope, whose editing was equally faulty.] Sir Thomas says he found Warburton's notes "sometimes just, but mostly wild and out of the way." Warburton paid a visit to Sir Thomas for a week, which he conceived was to a.s.sist him in perfecting his darling text; but hints were now dropped by Warburton, that _he_ might publish the work corrected, by which a greater sum of money might be got than could be by that plaything of Sir Thomas, which shines in all its splendour in the Dunciad; but this project did not suit Hanmer, whose life seemed greatly to depend on the magnificent Oxford edition, which "was not to go into the hands of booksellers." On this, Warburton, we are told by Hanmer, "flew into a great rage, and there is an end of the story." With what haughtiness he treats these two friends, for once they were such! Had the Dey of Algiers been the editor of Shakspeare, he could not have issued his orders more peremptorily for the decapitation of his rivals. Of Theobald and Hanmer he says, "the one was recommended to me as a poor man, the other as a poor critic: and to each of them at different times I communicated a great number of observations, which they managed, as they saw fit, to the relief of their several distresses. Mr. Theobald was naturally turned to industry and labour. What he read he could transcribe; but as to what he thought, if ever he did think, he could but ill express, so he read on: and by that means got a character of learning, without risking to every observer the imputation of wanting a better talent."--See what it is to enjoy too close an intimacy with a man of wit! "As for the Oxford Editor, he wanted nothing (alluding to Theobald's want of money) but what he might very well be without, the reputation of a critic,"

&c. &c.--_Warburton's Preface to Shakspeare._

His conduct to Dr. GREY, the editor of Hudibras, cannot be accounted for by any known fact. I have already noticed their quarrels in the "Calamities of Authors." Warburton cheerfully supplied Grey with various notes on Hudibras, though he said he had thought of an edition himself, and they were gratefully acknowledged in Grey's Preface; but behold! shortly afterwards they are saluted by Warburton as "an execrable heap of nonsense;" further, he insulted Dr. Grey for the _number_ of his publications! Poor Dr. Grey and his "Coadjutors," as Warburton sneeringly called others of his friends, resented this by "A Free and Familiar Letter to that Great Preserver of Pope and Shakspeare, the Rev. Mr. William Warburton." The doctor insisted that Warburton had had sufficient share in those very notes to be considered as one of the "Coadjutors."

"I may venture to say, that whoever was the _fool of the company_ before he entered (or _the fool of the piece_, in his own diction) he was certainly so after he engaged in that work; for, as Ben Jonson observes, 'he that _thinks_ himself the _Master-Wit_ is commonly the _Master-Fool_.'"

[174] Warburton certainly used little intrigues: he trafficked with the obscure Reviews of the times. He was a correspondent in "The Works of the Learned," where the account of his first volume of the Divine Legation, he says, is "a nonsensical piece of stuff;" and when Dr. Doddridge offered to draw up an article for his second, the favour was accepted, and it was sent to the miserable journal, though acknowledged "to be too good for it." In the same journal were published all his specimens of Shakspeare, some years after they had appeared in the "General Dictionary," with a high character of these wonderful discoveries.--"The Alliance," when first published, was announced in "The Present State of the Republic of Letters," to be the work of a gentleman whose capacity, judgment, and learning deserve some eminent dignity in the Church of England, of which he is "now an inferior minister."--One may presume to guess at "the gentleman," a little impatient for promotion, who so much cared whether Warburton was only "now an inferior minister."

These are little arts. Another was, that Warburton sometimes acted Falstaff's part, and ran his sword through the dead! In more instances than one this occurred. Sir Thomas Hanmer was dead when Warburton, then a bishop, ventured to a.s.sert that Sir Thomas's letter concerning their intercourse about Shakspeare was "one continued falsehood from beginning to end." The honour and veracity of Hanmer must prevail over the "liveliness" of Warburton, for Hurd lauds his "_lively_ preface to his Shakspeare." But the "Biographia Britannica"

bears marks of Warburton's violence, in a cancelled sheet. See the _Index_, art. HANMER; [where we are told "the sheet being castrated at the instance of Mr., now Dr. Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, it has been reprinted as an appendix to the work,"

it consisted in the suppression of one of Hanmer's letters.]

He did not choose to attack Dr. Middleton in form, during his lifetime, but reserved his blow when his antagonist was no more. I find in Cole's MSS. this curious pa.s.sage:--"It was thought, at Cambridge, that Dr. Middleton and Dr. Warburton did not cordially esteem one another; yet both being keen and thorough sportsmen, they were mutually afraid to engage to each other, for fear of a fall. If that was the case, the bishop judged prudently, however fairly it may be looked upon, to stay till it was out of the power of his adversary to make any reply, before he gave his answer." Warburton only replied to Middleton's "Letter from Rome," in his fourth edition of the "Divine Legation," 1765.--When Dyson firmly defended his friend Akenside from the rude attacks of Warburton, it is observed, that he bore them with "prudent patience:" he never replied!

[175] These critical _extravaganzas_ are scarcely to be paralleled by "Bentley's Notes on Milton." How Warburton turned "an allegorical mermaid" into "the Queen of Scots;"--showed how Shakspeare, in one word, and with one epithet "the majestic world," described the _Orbis Roma.n.u.s_, alluded to the Olympic Games, &c.; yet, after all this discovery, seems rather to allude to a story about Alexander, which Warburton happened to recollect at that moment;--and how he ill.u.s.trated Octavia's idea of the fatal consequences of a civil war between Caesar and Antony, who said it would "cleave the world," by the story of Curtius leaping into the chasm;--how he rejected "_allowed_, with absolute power," as not English, and read "_hallowed_," on the authority of the Roman Tribuneship being called _Sacro-sancta Potestas_; how his emendations often rose from puns; as for instance, when, in _Romeo and Juliet_, it is said of the Friar, that "the city is much obliged to _him_,"

our new critic consents to the sound of the word, but not to the spelling, and reads _hymn_; that is, to laud, to praise!

These, and more extraordinary instances of perverting ingenuity and abused erudition, would form an uncommon specimen of criticism, which may be justly ridiculed, but which none, except an exuberant genius, could have produced.

The most amusing work possible would be a real Warburton's Shakspeare, which would contain not a single thought, and scarcely an expression, of Shakspeare's!

[176] Had Johnson known as much as we do of Warburton's opinion of his critical powers, it would have gone far to have cured his amiable prejudice in favour of Warburton, who really was a critic without taste, and who considered literature as some do politics, merely as a party business. I shall give a remarkable instance. When Johnson published his first critical attempt on _Macbeth_, he commended the critical talents of Warburton; and Warburton returned the compliment in the preface to his Shakspeare, and distinguishes Johnson as "a man of parts and genius." But, unluckily, Johnson afterwards published his own edition; and, in his editorial capacity, his public duty prevailed over his personal feelings: all this went against Warburton; and the opinions he now formed of Johnson were suddenly those of insolent contempt. In a letter to Hurd, he writes: "Of _this Johnson_, you and I, I believe, think alike!" And to another friend: "The remarks he makes, in every page, on _my Commentaries_, are full of _insolence and malignant reflections_, which, had they not in them _as much folly as malignity_, I should have reason to be offended with." He consoles himself, however, that Johnson's notes, accompanying his own, will enable even "the trifling part of the public" not to mistake in the comparison.--NICHOLS'S "Literary Anecdotes," vol. v. p. 595.

And what became of Johnson's n.o.ble Preface to Shakspeare? Not a word on that!--Warburton, who himself had written so many spirited ones, perhaps did not like to read one finer than his own,--so he pa.s.sed it by! He travelled through Egypt, but held his hands before his eyes at a pyramid!

[177] Thomas Edwards chiefly led the life of a literary student, though he studied for the Bar at Lincoln's-Inn, and was fully admitted a member thereof. He died unmarried at the age of 58. He descended from a family of lawyers; possessed a sufficient private property to ensure independence, and died on his own estate of Turrick, in Buckinghamshire. Dr.

Warton observes, "This attack on Mr. Edwards is not of weight sufficient to weaken the effects of his excellent 'Canons of Criticism,' all impartial critics allow these remarks to have been decisive and judicious, and his book remains unrefuted and unanswerable."--ED.

[178] Some grave dull men, who did not relish the jests, doubtless the booksellers, who, to buy the _name of Warburton_, had paid down 500_l._ for the edition, loudly complained that Edwards had injured both him and them, by stopping the sale! On this Edwards expresses his surprise, how "a little twelvepenny pamphlet could stop the progress of eight large octavo volumes;" and apologises, by applying a humorous story to Warburton, for "puffing himself off in the world for what he is not, and now being discovered."--"I am just in the case of a friend of mine, who, going to visit an acquaintance, upon entering his room, met a person going out of it:--'Prythee, Jack,' says he, 'what do you do with that fellow?' 'Why, 'tis Don Pedro di Mondongo, my Spanish master.'--'Spanish master!'

replies my friend; 'why, he's an errant Teague; I know the fellow well enough: 'tis Rory Gehagan. He may possibly have been in Spain; but, depend on't, he will sell you the Tipperary brogue for pure Castilian.' Now honest Rory has just the same reason of complaint against this gentleman as Mr.

Warburton has against me, and I suppose abused him as heartily for it; but nevertheless the gentleman did both parties justice."

Some secret history is attached to this publication, so fatal to Warburton's critical character in English literature. This satire, like too many which have sprung out of literary quarrels, arose from _personal motives_! When Edwards, in early life, after quitting college, entered the army, he was on a visit at Mr. Allen's, at Bath, whose niece Warburton afterwards married. Literary subjects formed the usual conversation. Warburton, not suspecting the red coat of covering any Greek, showed his accustomed dogmatical superiority. Once, when the controversy was running high, Edwards taking down a Greek author, explained a pa.s.sage in a manner quite contrary to Warburton. He did unluckily something more--he showed that Warburton's mistake had arisen from having used a French translation!--and all this before Ralph Allen and his niece! The doughty critic was at once silenced, in sullen indignation and mortal hatred. To this circ.u.mstance is attributed Edwards's "Canons of Criticism," which were followed up by Warburton with incessant attacks; in every new edition of Pope, in the "Essay on Criticism," and the Dunciad.

Warburton a.s.serts that Edwards is a very dull writer (witness the pleasantry that carries one through a volume of no small size), that he is a libeller (because he ruined the critical character of Warburton)--and "a libeller (says Warburton, with poignancy), is nothing but a Grub-street critic run to seed."--He compares Edwards's wit and learning to his ancestor Tom Thimble's, in the _Rehearsal_ (because Edwards read Greek authors in their original), and his air of good-nature and politeness, to Caliban's in the _Tempest_ (because he had so keenly written the "Canons of Criticism").--I once saw a great literary curiosity: some _proof-sheets_ of the Dunciad of Warburton's edition. I observed that some of the bitterest notes were _after-thoughts_, written on those proof-sheets after he had prepared the book for the press--one of these additions was his note on Edwards. Thus Pope's book afforded renewed opportunities for all the personal hostilities of this singular genius!

[179] In the "Richardsoniana," p. 264, the younger Richardson, who was admitted to the intimacy of Pope, and collated the press for him, gives some curious information about Warburton's Commentary, both upon the "Essay on Man" and the "Essay on Criticism." "Warburton's discovery of the 'regularity' of Pope's 'Essay on Criticism,' and 'the whole scheme' of his 'Essay on Man,' I happen to _know_ to be mere absurd refinement in creating conformities; and this from Pope himself, though he thought fit to adopt them afterwards." The genius of Warburton might not have found an invincible difficulty in proving that the "Essay on Criticism" was in fact an Essay on Man, and the reverse. Pope, before he knew Warburton, always spoke of his "Essay on Criticism" as "an irregular collection of thoughts thrown together as Horace's 'Art of Poetry' was." "As for the 'Essay on Man,'" says Richardson, "I _know_ that he never dreamed of the scheme he afterwards adopted; but he had taken terror about the clergy, and Warburton himself, at the general alarm of its fatalism and deistical tendency, of which my father and I talked with him frequently at Twickenham, without his appearing to understand it, or ever thinking to alter those pa.s.sages which we suggested."--This extract is to be valued, for the information is authentic; and it a.s.sists us in throwing some light on the subtilty of Warburton's critical impositions.

[180] The postscript to Warburton's "Dedication to the Freethinkers,"

is entirely devoted to Akenside; with this bitter opening, "The Poet was too full of the subject and of himself."

[181] "An Epistle to the Rev. Mr. Warburton, occasioned by his Treatment of the Author of 'The Pleasures of the Imagination,'"

1744. While Dyson repels Warburton's accusations against "the Poet," he retorts some against the critic himself. Warburton often perplexed a controversy by a subtile change of a word; or by breaking up a sentence; or by contriving some absurdity in the shape of an inference, to get rid of it in a mock triumph. These little weapons against the laws of war are insidiously practised in the war of words. Warburton never replied.

[182] The paradoxical t.i.tle of his great work was evidently designed to attract the unwary. "The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated--_from the omission of a future state_!" It was long uncertain whether it was "a covert attack on Christianity, instead of a defence of it." I have here no concern with Warburton's character as a polemical theologist; this has been the business of that polished and elegant scholar, Bishop Lowth, who has shown what it is to be in Hebrew literature "a Quack in Commentatorship, and a Mountebank in Criticism." He has fully entered into all the absurdity of Warburton's "ill-starred Dissertation on Job."

It is curious to observe that Warburton in the wild chase of originality, often too boldly took the bull by the horns, for he often adopted the very reasonings and objections of infidels!--for instance, in arguing on the truth of the Hebrew text, because the words had no points when a living language, he absolutely prefers the Koran for correctness! On this Lowth observes: "You have been urging the same argument that _Spinoza_ employed, in order to destroy the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures, and to introduce infidelity and atheism." Lowth shows further, that "this was also done by 'a society of gentlemen,' in their 'Sacerdotism Displayed,' said to be written by 'a select committee of the Deists and Freethinkers of Great Britain,' whose author Warburton himself had represented to be 'the forwardest devil of the whole legion.'" Lowth, however, concludes that all the mischief has arisen only from "your lordship's undertaking to treat of a subject with which you appear to be very much unacquainted."--LOWTH'S _Letter_, p. 91.

[183] Lowth remonstrated with Warburton on his "supreme authority:"--"I did not care to protest against the authoritative manner in which you proceeded, or to question _your invest.i.ture in the high office of Inquisitor General and Supreme Judge of the Opinions of the Learned_, which you had long before a.s.sumed, and had _exercised with a ferocity and a despotism without example in the Republic of Letters, and hardly to be paralleled among the disciples of Dominic_; exacting their opinions to the standard of your infallibility, and prosecuting with implacable hatred every one that presumed to differ from you."--LOWTH'S _Letter to W._, p. 9.

[184] Warburton had the most cutting way of designating his adversaries, either by the most vehement abuse or the light petulance that expressed his ineffable contempt. He says to one, "Though your teeth are short, what you want in teeth you have in venom, and know, as all other creatures do, where your strength lies." He thus announces in one of the prefaces to the "Divine Legation" the name of the author of a work on "A Future State of Rewards and Punishments," in which were some objections to Warburton's theory:--"I shall, therefore, but do what indeed would be justly reckoned the cruellest of all things, _tell my reader the name of this miserable_; which we find to be J. TILLARD." "Mr. Tillard was first condemned (says the author of 'Confusion Worse Confounded,') as a ruffian that stabs a man in the dark, because he did _not_ put his name to his book against the 'Divine Legation;' and afterwards condemned as lost to shame, both as a man and a writer, because he _did_ put his name to it." Would not one imagine this person to be one of the lowest of miscreants? He was a man of fortune and literature. Of this person Warburton says in a letter, "This is a man of fortune, and it is well he is so, for I have spoiled his trade as a writer; and as he was very abusive, free-thinking, and anonymous, I have not spared to expose his ignorance and ill faith." But afterwards, having discovered that he was a particular friend to Dr. Oliver, he makes awkward apologies, and declares he would not have _gone so far_ had he known this! He was often so vehement in his abuse that I find he confessed it himself, for, in preparing a new edition of the "Divine Legation," he tells Dr. Birch that he has made "several omissions of pa.s.sages which were thought _vain_, _insolent_, and _ill-natured_."

It is amusing enough to observe how he designates men as great as himself. When he mentions the learned Hyde, he places him "at the head of a rabble of lying orientalists." When he alludes to Peters, a very learned and ingenious clergyman, he pa.s.ses by him as "The Cornish Critic." A friend of Peters observed that "he had given Warburton 'a Cornish hug,' of which he might be sore as long as he lived." Dr. Taylor, the learned editor of Demosthenes, he selects from "his fellows,"

that is, other dunces: a delicacy of expression which offended scholars. He threatens Dr. Stebbing, who had preserved an anonymous character, "to catch this Eel of Controversy, since he hides his head by the tail, the only part that sticks out of the mud, more dirty indeed than slippery, and still more weak than dirty, as pa.s.sing through a trap where he was forced at every step to leave part of his skin--that is, his system."

Warburton has often true wit. With what provoking contempt he calls Sir Thomas Hanmer always "The Oxford Editor!" and in his attack on Akenside, never fails to nickname him, in derision, "The Poet!" I refer the reader to a postscript of his "Dedication to the Freethinkers," for a curious specimen of supercilious causticity in his description of Lord Kaimes as a critic, and Akenside as "The Poet!" Of this pair he tells us, in bitter derision, "they are both men of taste." Hurd imitated his master successfully, by using some qualifying epithet, or giving an adversary some odd nickname, or discreetly dispensing a little mortifying praise. The antagonists he encounters were men sometimes his superiors, and these he calls "sizeable men." Some are styled "insect blasphemers!" The learned Lardner is reduced to "the laborious Dr. Lardner;" and "Hume's History" is treated with the discreet praise of being "the most readable history we have."

He carefully hints to Leland that "he had never read his works, nor looked into his translations; but what he has _heard_ of his writings makes him think favourably of him."

Thus he teases the rhetorical professor by mentioning the "elegant translation which, _they say_, you have made of Demosthenes!" And he understands that he is "a scholar, who, _they say_, employs himself in works of learning and taste."

Lowth seems to have discovered this secret art of Warburton; for he says, "You have a set of names always at hand, a kind of infamous list, or black calendar, where every offender is sure to find a niche ready to receive him; nothing so easy as the application, and slight provocation is sufficient."

[185] Sometimes Warburton left his battles to be fought by subaltern genius; a circ.u.mstance to which Lowth, with keen pleasantry, thus alludes:--"Indeed, my lord, I was afterwards much surprised, when, having been with great civility dismissed from your presence, I found _your footman at your door, armed with his master's cane, and falling upon me without mercy_, yourself looking on and approving, and having probably put the weapon with proper orders into his hands. You think, it seems, that I ought to have taken my beating quietly and patiently, in respect to the livery which he wore. I was not of so tame a disposition: I wrested the weapon from him, and broke it. Your lordship, it seems, by an oblique blow, got an unlucky rap on the knuckles; though you may thank yourself for it, you lay the blame on me."--LOWTH'S _Letter to W._, p. 11.

Warburton and Hurd frequently concerted together on the manner of attack and defence. In one of these letters of Hurd's it is very amusing to read--"Taylor is a more creditable dunce than Webster. What do you think to do with the Appendix against Tillard and Sykes? Why might not Taylor rank with them," &c.

The Warburtonians had also a system of _espionage_. When Dr.

Taylor was accused by one of them of having _said_ that Warburton was no scholar, the learned Grecian replied that he did not recollect ever _saying_ that Dr. Warburton was no scholar, but that indeed he had always _thought_ so. Hence a tremendous quarrel! Hurd, the Mercury of our Jupiter, cast the first light shaft against the doctor, then Chancellor of Lincoln, by alluding to the Preface of his work on Civil Law as "_a certain thing_ prefatory to a learned work, int.i.tuled 'The Elements of Civil Law:'" but at length Jove himself rolled his thunder on the hapless chancellor. The doctor had said in his work, that "the Roman emperors persecuted the first Christians, not so much from a dislike of their tenets as from a jealousy of their nocturnal a.s.semblies." Warburton's doctrine was, that "they held nocturnal a.s.semblies because of the persecution of their enemies." One was the fact, and the other the consequence. But the Chancellor of Lincoln was to be outrageously degraded among the dunces! that was the real motive; the "nocturnal a.s.semblies" only the ostensible one. A pamphleteer, in defence of the chancellor, in reply, thought that in "this literary persecution" it might be dangerous "if Dr. Taylor should be provoked to _prove in print_ what he only _dropped in conversation_." How innocent was this gentleman of the arts and stratagems of logomachy, or book-wars! The _proof_ would not have altered the cause: Hurd would have disputed it tooth and nail; Warburton was running greater risks, every day of his life, than any he was likely to receive from this flourish in the air. The great purpose was to make the Chancellor of Lincoln the b.u.t.t of his sarcastic pleasantry; and this object was secured by Warburton's forty pages of preface, in which the chancellor stands to be buffeted like an ancient quintain, "a mere lifeless block."

All this came upon him for only _thinking_ that Warburton was no _scholar_!

[186] See what I have said at the close of the note, pp. 262-3. In a collection ent.i.tled "Verses occasioned by Mr. Warburton's late Edition of Mr. Pope's Works," 1751, are numerous epigrams, parodies, and similes on it. I give one:--

"As on the margin of Thames' silver flood Stand little _necessary_ piles of wood, So Pope's fair page appears with _notes_ disgraced: Put down the nuisances, ye men of taste!"

Lowth has noticed the use Warburton made of his patent for vending Pope. "I thought you might possibly whip me at the cart's-tail in a note to the 'Divine Legation,' the ordinary place of your literary executions; or _pillory me in the Dunciad_, another engine which, as legal proprietor, you have very ingeniously and judiciously applied to the same purpose; or, perhaps, have ordered me a kind of Bridewell correction, by one of your beadles, in a pamphlet."--LOWTH'S _"Letter to Warburton,"_ p. 4.