measures, indignantly remarks, that

S

-k, if he lives, will love the Prince.

F. Strange spleen to S

P.

-k!

Do I wrong the man?

God knows I praise a courtier when I can.'*

In commenting on this passage, Dr. Warton asks, whether Pope, in thus publicly and wantonly holding up to ridicule an amiable man, and an exemplary and learned dignitary of the church, can seriously inquire whether or not 'he wrongs the man?' With all due deference to the learned commentator, I cannot see the propriety of the term I wanton ridicule' in this instance. Sherlock's motives and conduct lay fairly open to any man's animadversion; and when amiable and learned dignitaries of the church plunge into the stormy sea of politics, it is not their amiability of character or their uncommon learning, which can or ought to defend their conduct from criticism, or from censure if deserved. With regard to the little wasp of Twickenham,' when we consider that his friend and patron Bolingbroke was moving the secret springs of Frederick's party at this time, and that Sherlock was an intimate friend, adviser, and defender of Whig ministers, whom he hated with no common aversion, we shall be surprised, not indeed that he drew out his sting, but that he did not inflict a deeper wound.

It has been already observed that, on the decease of Archbishop Potter, Sherlock might have ascended to the highest eminence in the church: this however he declined without hesitation, on account of the ill state of his health at that period. Hitherto he had felt himself equal to the duties of each place which he had filled: but now

Pope's Epilogue to the Satires, Dial. ii. 1. 61.

his apparently declining strength made him fear, lest, by accepting so exalted a station, he should only increase his cares and responsibility, without enlarging his sphere of usefulness. But the exertions of his powerful mind were not destined yet to cease. In the succeeding year, 1749, he rallied; and on the death of Dr. Edmund Gibson, accepted a translation to the arduous see of London.

On the duties of this important office he entered with his usual vigor and alacrity; and in this same year he published that edition of his Discourses on Prophecy, which excited Dr. Middleton to attack them with great virulence in his 'Examination;' who proved in this instance the truth of a common observation, that no one is a bitterer foe than he who has once been a friend to the person assailed. Nor does it tell well for Middleton's candor and ingenuousness, that his hostility against Sherlock's theological opinions, took its origin from personal pique and private malevolence. According to his own showing it arose merely from resentment, because he thought the Bishop had opposed his election to the mastership of the Charter House, on account of the sceptical views which he had introduced into his letter to Dr. Waterland on the miraculous powers. But even in this he seems to have erred; since the Bishop interfered no farther than to give an answer to Sir R. Walpole, when pressed to declare his opinion whether the appointment would be relished or not by the clergy. Archbishop Potter and Bishop Gibson seem to have been the persons who most effectually opposed his advancement.* When Middleton descends to personal invective and abuse against an old associate and friend, whom he had once complimented on the very work

* Encyclop. Brit. Suppl. p. 231. note D.

in question, even this is sufficiently derogatory to a scholar and a gentleman; but the folly and the crime become much more serious when such an one allows resentment for injuries, real or supposed, from weak and fallible men, to urge him on to hostilities against revealed religion. Had he had,' says Bishop Warburton, I will not say, piety, but greatness of mind enough not to suffer the pretended injuries of some churchmen to prejudice him against religion, I should love him living, and honor his memory when dead. But, good God! that man, for the discourtesies done him by his miserable fellow-creatures, should be content to divest himself of the true viaticum, the comfort, the solace, the asylum from all the evils of life, is perfectly astonishing.* The following observations of the same learned prelate to his correspondent Mr. Hurd, respecting Middleton's virulent examination of the Discourses on Prophecy, are too interesting and important to be withheld from the reader's notice.

"Your last favor of the 23rd instant was sent me hither from Prior-Park, which I left about ten days ago, and whither I propose to return in about a fortnight. We agree intirely in our sentiments about the examination. I think it the weakest as well as warmest pamphlet the Dr. ever wrote. But I agree with you there is no harm done. It may be of use to make people understand themselves. I disagree with the Dr. in his two general questions. The first, that there is no system of prophecy, but only particular, detached, unrelated prophecies. His reason is, that Christ and bis Apostles refer only to such. By the same kind of reasoning I could prove there is no system of morals, because Christ and his Apostles recommend and inforce only particular and detached virtues occasionally. But is not the reason of this evident enough? They had

* Letter to Hurd, July 11, 1750.

to do with the common people, who cannot comprehend or attend to a long deduction or chain of things. They can only see simple truths, and it is well they can see them. Take a plain man with an honest heart, give him his Bible, and make him conversant in it, and I will engage for him he will never be at a loss to know how to act, agreeably to his duty, in every circumstance of life. Yet give this man a good English translation of Aristotle's Ethics, (one of the most complete works for method in its kind,) and by the time he has got to the end of it, I dare say he will not understand one word he has been reading. But is the explanation of the economy of grace, in which is contained the system of prophecy, that is, the connexion and dependance of the prophecies of the several ages of the church of God, therefore of no use? Surely the greatest. And I am confident nothing but the light which will arise from thence can support Christianity under its present circumstances. But the contending for single prophecies only, and by a man who thinks they relate to Christ in a secondary sense only, and who appears to have no high opinion of second senses, looks very suspicious. What would one think of an advocate at the bar, who, when the contrary party had made out his point by a number of various circumstances that supported and threw light on one another, should reply and say, you are a maker of fanciful hypothesis? you have brought all these various unrelated circumstances into a body or a system but you should consider them as separate and distinct, for so they were delivered in at the bar by the witnesses? If the Doctor ever considers these prophecies, as he seems to promise he will, I perhaps shall have something to say to him. The other point is the Fall. It is managed just in the manner you say,-He will have it to be an allegory. I agree it is so. In this we differ,-He supposes it to be an allegory of a moral truth, namely, that man soon corrupted his ways; and seems to think, by his way of speaking, that an allegory can convey no other kind of information. I say it is an allegory of a moral fact, namely, that man had transgressed that positive command, (whatever it was,) on the observance of which the free gift of immortality was conditionally given. this interpretation Christianity has something to bottom itself on. On the Doctor's notion it is a mere castle in the air. But I do not pretend you should understand what I mean, till you see it

In

developed in my Discourse of the Nature of Christianity, which makes the IXth Book of the Div. Leg. But on this point the Doctor's and the Bishop's notions are not very different, though controversy has kept them at a distance.*

Sherlock, at his first entrance into the see of London, had a dispute with Archbishop Herring concerning the right of options. That which was selected by his Grace in this instance was the valuable rectory of St. George's, Hanover Square, the incumbent of which, Dr. Trebeck, was very old and infirm. The Bishop, vexed at being deprived of one his best pieces of preferment, drew up a pamphlet on the subject, and for a while determined to oppose the claim; but at length a compromise took place, and the Archbishop consented to accept of St. Anne's, Soho, instead of St. George's. This was submitted to by the Bishop; but in 1755 he printed his opinions in a folio pamphlet, though he did not think proper to publish them; and this was afterwards reprinted by Archbishop Herring, in 4to. for his friends, with a short answer by Mr. Joddrell and Archdeacon Denne.‡

* Warburton and Hurd's Correspondence, Letter xvii. Jan. 30, 1749-50.

+ Fifty copies only were struck off for those that were interested in the subject: a copy was presented to each of the Advocates in Doctors Commons.-Nichols's Lit. Anecd. vol. ix. p. 311.

Having never seen either of these pamphlets, and having been obliged to compose this biography by fits and starts, far removed from my literary resources, and in the midst of a severe domestic affliction, I am totally unprepared to enter into the merits of the question, though I conceive that many who have hitherto touched on it, have deviated from the main point by arguing from hearsay. A curious and interesting letter on the subject from Dr. Nathaniel Forster to the Archbishop is published by Nichols in his Lit. Anecdotes, vol. ix. p. 297.