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 Popé 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

own.

*"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,

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 " Ŏdes," 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 trage. dians, 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 arresting 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 bis 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.

bey and the Chapel-royal. He married Elizabeth daughter and co-heir of John Somerville, of Somerville Aston le Warwick; by whom he had issue one son, Philip, our author, and two daughters; Arabella, married to Henry Clerke, esq. and afterwards married to Christopher Turnor, of the Middle Temple, esq. barrister at law, who, at the Restoration, was knighted, and made a baron of the exchequer.

In

Sir Philip Warwick was born in the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster, in the year 1608. He was educated at Eton-school, and afterwards travelled into France, and was some time at Geneva, where he studied under the famous Diodati. When he returned from abroad, he became secretary to the lord treasurer Juxon; and a clerk of the signet. He was diplomated bachelor of law at Oxford April 11th, 1638, and in 1640 was elected burgess for Radnor in Wales, and was one of the fifty-six who gave a negative to the bill of attainder against the earl of Strafford. Disapproving afterwards of the conduct of parliament, he went to the king at Oxford, and was for this desertion (by a vote of the House, Feb. 5, 1643), disabled from sitting there. Whilst at Oxford, he lodged in University-college, and his counsel was much relied upon by the king. 1643, he was sent to the earl of Newcastle in the north, to persuade him to march southerly, which he could not be prevailed to comply with, "designing (as sir Peter Warwick perceived) to be the man who should turn the scale, and to be a self-subsisting and distinct army wherever he was." In 1646, he was one of the king's commissioners to treat with the parliament for the surrender of Oxford; and in the following year he attended the king to the Isle of Wight in the capacity of secretary; and there desiring, with some others, a leave of absence to look after their respective affairs, he took leave of the king, and never saw him more. Besides being engaged in these important commissions, he took up arms in the royal cause; one time serving under captain Turberville, who lost his life near Newark, at another in what was called the Troop of Show, consisting of noblemen, gentlemen, and their attendants, in all about 500 horse, whose property taken together was reckoned at 100,000l. per annum, and who, by his majesty's permission, (they, being his guards,) had the honour of being engaged in the first charge at the battle of Edgehill.

He was busily engaged in private conferences with the chief promoters of the Restoration; but this he does not relate to creep into a little share in bringing back the king," as he attributed that event to more than earthly wisdom. In the first parliament called by Charles II. he was returned burgess for his native city of Westminster, and about that time received the honour of knighthood, and was restored to his place of clerk of the signet. He was likewise employed by the virtuous earl of Southampton as secretary to the treasury, in which office he acquitted himself with such abilities and integrity as did honour to them both, and in which post he continued till the death of that earl in 1667. The loss which the public sustained in his retirement from business is handsomely acknowledged in one of sir William Temple's letters to our author.

He married, about the year 1638, Dorothy, daughter of Thomas Hutton of Mash, Yorkshire, by whom he had an only son Philip Towards the end of Charles the First's reign he purchased the seat called Frognal, in the parish of Chiselhurst, in Kent, now or lately the seat of lord viscount Sidney; and about the year 1647, he married, to his second wife, dame Joan, widow of sir William Botteler, bart. who was killed in the battle at Cropredy-bridge, and daughter of sir Henry Fanshaw, of More-park, a near kinswoman to General Fairfax.

Sir Peter Warwick died January 15th, 1682-3, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. His only child, Philip (who married Elizabeth, second daughter and co-heiress of John lord Freskville, of Stavely-le-Derby, by whom he had no issue, died at Newmarket the 26th of March following, as he was returning post from Sweden (where he was envoy) to take bis last farewell of his father. She was afterwards fourth wife of John earl of Holdernesse. By will, proved April 5, 1683, sir Peter Warwick left to the parish of Chiselhurst 100%. to be placed out at interest for apprenticing a boy in the sea-service. To his native parish of St. Margaret, Westminster, the like sum for the same purpose; and towards the building of St. Paul's church 100l.; to sir Charles Cotterill the little seal of his old master king Charles.

Dr. Smith, the learned editor of sir Peter Warwick's "Discourse of Government," says, "That the author was a gentleman of sincere piety, of strict morals, of a great