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was not so proper or necessary to object that he had given us his essay cut down into notes. Besides that this was unavoidable, they who made the objection had not been very careful to compare the new with the old matter; they would have found upon a fair examination that his original illustrations were very numerous, and that no discovery respecting Pope's character or writings made since the edition of Warburton, was left untouched.

It has already been mentioned that he had once an intention of compiling a history of the revival of learning, and that he had abandoned it. About 1784, however, he issued proposals for a work which would probably have included much of his original purpose. This was to have been comprized in two quarto volumes, and to contain "The History of Grecian, Roman, Italian, and French Poetry in four parts; I. From Homer to Nonnus; II. From Ennius to Boetius; III. From Dante to Metastasio; IV. From W. de Lorris to Voltaire." This he announced as "preparing for the press." Probably his brother's death, and his desire to complete his History of English Poetry, diverted him from his own design; but it does not appear that he made any progress in either.

After the publication of Pope, he entered on an edition of Dryden, and about 1799 had completed two volumes with notes, which have since been published. At this time the venerable author was attacked by an incurable disorder in his kidneys, which terminated his useful and honourable life on Feb. 23, 1800, in his seventy-eighth year*. He left a widow, who died in 1806, a son and three daughters, the youngest by his second wife. He was interred in the same grave with his first wife, in the north aisle of Winchester cathedral and the Wiccamists evinced their respect for his memory by an elegant monument by Flaxman, placed against the pillar next to the entrance of the choir on the south side of the centre aisle.

In 1806, the rev. John Wooll, master of the school of Midhurst in Sussex, published "Biographical Memoirs of Dr. Warton, with a selection from his Poetry, and a Lite

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rary correspondence." From all these, the present sketch has been compiled, with some additional particulars gleaned from the literary journals of the times, and other sources of information.

The personal character of Dr. Warton continues to be the theme of praise with all who knew him. Without affectation of superior philosophy, he possessed an independent spirit; and amidst what would have been to others very bitter disappointments, he was never known to express the language of discontent or envy. As a husband and parent, he displayed the tenderest feelings mixed with that prudence which implies sense as well as affection. His manners partook of what has been termed the old court: his address was polite, and even elegant, but occasionally it had somewhat of measure and stateliness. Having left. the university after a short residence, he mixed early with the world, sought and enjoyed the society of the fair sex, and tempered his studious habits with the tender and polite attentions necessary in promiscuous intercourse. In this respect there was a visible difference between him and his brother, whose manners were more careless and unpolished. In the more solid qualities of the heart, in true benevolence, kindness, hospitality, they approached more closely. Yet though their inclinations and pursuits were congenial, and each assisted the other in his undertakings, it may be questioned whether at any time they could have exchanged occupations. With equal stores of literature, with equal refinement of taste, it may be questioned whether the author of the Essay on Pope could have pursued the History of English poetry, or whether the historian of poetry could have written the papers we find in the Ad

venturer.

In conversation, Dr. Warton's talents appeared to great advantage. He was mirthful, argumentative, or communicative of observation and anecdote, as he found his company lean to the one or the other. His memory was more richly stored with literary history than perhaps any man of his time, and his range was very extensive. He knew French and Italian literature most intimately; and when conversing on more common topics, his extempore sallies and opinions bore evidence of the same delicate taste and candour which appear in his writings.

His biographer has considered his literary character under the three heads of a poet, a critic, and an instructor; VOL. XXXI.

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but it is as a critic principally that he will be known to posterity, and as one who, in the language of Johnson, has taught how the brow of criticism may be smoothed, and how she may be enabled, with all her severity, to attract and to delight." A book, indeed, of more delightful variety than his Essay on Pope, has not yet appeared, nor one in which there is a more happy mixture of judgment and sensibility. It did not, however, flatter the current opinions on the rank of Pope among poets, and the author desisted from pursuing his subject for many years. Dr. Johnson said that this was owing to his not having been able to persuade the world to be of his opinion as to Pope." This was probably the truth, but not the whole truth. Motives of a delicate nature are supposed to have had some share in inducing him to desist for a time. Warburton was yet alive, the executor of Pope and the guardian of his fame, and Warburton was no less the active and zealous friend and correspondent of Thomas Warton; nor was it any secret that Warburton furnished Ruff head with the materials for his Life of Pope, the chief object of which was a rude and impotent attack on the Essay. Warburton died in 1779, and in 1782, Dr. Warton completed his Essay, and at length persuaded the world that he did not differ from the common opinion so much as was supposed *. Still by pointing out what is not poetry, he gave unpardonable offence to those, whose names appear among poets, but whom he has reduced to moralists and versifiers.

In this work our author produced no new doctrine. The severe arrangement of poets in his dedication to Young, which announced the principles he intended to apply to Pope, and to the whole body of English poetry, was evidently taken from Philips, the nephew of Milton. In the preface to the Theatrum of this writer, it is asserted, that wit, ingenuity, and learning in verse, even elegancy itself, though that comes nearest, are one thing: true native poetry is another; in which there is a certain air and spirit, which, perhaps, the most learned and judicious in other arts do not perfectly apprehend; much less is it attainable by any art or study." On this text the whole

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*" I thank you for the friendly is comprehended in these words of your delicacy in which you speak of my Essay on Pope. I never thought we disagreed so much as you seem to imagine. All I said, and all I think,

Own. He chose to be the poet of reason rather than of fancy." Letter from Dr. Warton to Mr. Hayley, published by Mr. Wooll, p. 406.

of the Essay is founded, and whatever objections were raised to it, while that blind admiration of Pope which accompanied his long dictatorship continued in full force, it is now generally adopted as the test of poetical merit by the best critics, although the partialities which some entertain for individual poets may yet give rise to difference of opinion respecting the provinces of argument and feeling.

That Dr. Warton advanced no novel opinions is proved from Phillips's Preface; and Phillips, there is reason to suppose, may have been indebted to his uncle Milton for an idea of poetry so superior to what was entertained in his day. It has already been noticed, that the opinions of the two Wartons, "the learned brothers" as they have been justly styled, were congenial on most topics of literature; but, perhaps, in nothing more than their ideas of poetry, which both endeavoured to exemplify in their own productions, although with different effect. Dr. Warton was certainly in point of invention, powers of description, and variety, greatly inferior to the laureate. The "Enthusiast," the "Dying Indian," the "Revenge of America," and one or two of his Odes, are not deficient in spirit and enthusiasm; but the rest are more remarkable for a correct and faultless elegance than for any striking attribute of poetry. His "Ödes," which were coeval with those of Collins, must have suffered greatly by comparison. So different is taste from execution, and so strikingly are we reminded of one of his assertions, that "in no polished nation, after criticism has been much studied, and the rules of writing established, has any very extraordinary work appeared." But while we are reminded of this by his own productions, it may yet be doubted whether what may be true when applied to an individual who has lived a life of criticism, will be equally true of a nation. Even among our living poets, we may find more than one who have given proofs that extraordinary poetry may yet be produced, and that the rules of writing are not so fixed, nor criticism so studied, as to impede the progress of real genius. All that can be concluded respecting Dr. Warton is, that if his genius had been equal to his taste, if he could have produced what he appreciates with such exquisite skill in others, he would have undoubtedly been in poetry what he was in erudition and criticism.

As an instructor and divine, Mr. Wooll's opinion of him may be adopted with safety. "His professional exertions united the qualities of criticism and instruction. When the higher classes read under him the Greek tragedians, orators, or poets, they received the benefit, not only of direct and appropriate information, but of a pure, elegant lecture on classical taste. The spirit with which he commented on the prosopopoeia of Edipus, or Electra, the genuine elegance and accuracy with which he developed the animated rules and doctrines of his favourite Longinus, the insinuating but guarded praise he bestowed, the well-judged and proportionate encouragement he uniformly held out to the first dawning of genius, and the anxious assiduity with which he pointed out the paths to literary eminence, can never, I am confident, be forgotten by those who have hung with steadfast attention on his precepts, and enjoyed the advantage of his superior guidance. Zealous in his adherence to the church-establishment, and exemplary in his attention to its ordinances and duties, he was at the same time a decided enemy to bigotry and intolerance. His style of preaching was unaffectedly earnest, and impressive; and the dignified solemnity with which he read the liturgy (particularly the communion-service), was remarkably awful. He had the most happy art of ar-, resting the attention of youth on religious subjects. Every Wiccamical reader will recollect his inimitable commentaries on Grotius on the Sunday-evenings, and his discourse annually delivered in the school on Good Friday; the impressions made by them cannot be forgotten.'

WARWICK (Sir PHILIP), a political writer and historian of the seventeenth century, was by birth a gentleman, descended from the Warwicks of Warthwykes of Warwicke in Cumberland, and bearing the same arms: "Vert, 3 lions rampant Argent." His grandfather, Thomas Warwick, is (in the visitation of Kent, by sir Edward Bysche, in 1667), styled of Hereford, but whom he married is not mentioned. His father, Thomas Warwick, was very eminent for his skill in the theory of music, having composed a song of forty parts, for forty several persons, each of them to have his part entire from the other. He was a commissioner for granting dispensations for converting arable land into. pasture; and was some time organist of Westminster-ab-.

1 Wooll's Memoirs.-English Poets, 1810, 21 vols.

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