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and acquirements, and four years afterwards he lost his beloved brother, with whom he had always enjoyed a mutuality of affections and studies, of a very uncommon kind. In 1788 he obtained, through the interest of Lord Shannon, a prebend of Winchester cathedral. He soon after obtained the Rectory of Easton, which he exchanged for that of Upham.

Being now at the age of 71, he resigned his school on 23 July 1793, and retired to his Rectory of Wickham," carrying with him the love,admiration, and esteem of the whole Wykehamical society." "That ardent mind," says Mr. Wooll," which had so eminently distinguished the exercise of his publick duties, did not desert him in the hours of leisure and retirement; for inactivity was foreign to his nature. His parsonage, his farm, his garden, were cultivated and adorned with the eagerness and taste of undiminished youth; whilst the beauties of the surrounding forest scenery, and the interesting grandeur of the neighbouring shore, were enjoyed by him with an enthusiasm innate in his very being. His lively sallies of playful wit, his rich store of literary anecdote, and the polished and habitual ease, with which he imperceptibly entered into the various ideas and pursuits of men in differ ent situations, and endowed with educations totally opposite, rendered him an acquaintance both profitable and amusing; whilst his unaffected piety and unbounded charity, stamped him a pastor adored by his parishioners. Difficult indeed would it be to decide, whether he shone in a degree less in this social character, than in the closet of criticism, or the chair of instruction."

He did not however sink into literary idleness. In 1797 he edi ted the works of Pope in 9 vols. 8vo. The notes to this edition, which necessarily include the greatest part of his celebrated Essay, are highly entertaining and instructive. But Dr. Warton was severely, and, it may be added, illiberally, attacked for inserting one or two somewhat indecent pieces in this edition, which had hitherto been excluded from his collected works. The most harsh of these attacks came from the author of the Pursuits of Literature: something, no doubt, must be deducted from the violence of one, whose professed object was satire ; but the grey hairs and past services of Warton ought to have protected him from excessive rudeness; and these over-nice criticks might,with a proper regard to consistency, have demanded the exclusion of several other works of Pope. It must not be concealed, however, that Beattie agreed in some degree with these censurers. have just seen," says he, "a new edition by Dr. Joseph Warton, of the works of Pope. It is fuller than Warburton's; but you will not think it better, when I tell you, that all Pope's obscenities, which Warburton was careful to omit, are carefully preserved by Warton, who also seems to have a great favour for infidel writers, particularly Voltaire. The book is well printed, but has no cuts, except a curious caricature of Pope's person, and an elegant profile of his head."*

"I

Warton was not however deterred by the blame he thus suffered, from entering upon an edition of Dryden; which, alas! he did

* Forbes, II. 320.

not live to finish; though he left two volumes ready for the press. This however is the less to be regretted as a similar undertaking is now in the hands of Mr. Walter Scott.

He died 23 Feb. 1800, at. 78, leaving behind him a widow; one son, Rev. John Warton; and three daughters; of whom only the youngest was by the last wife.

Such are the outlines of Dr. Warton's life; in which I have not confined myself to Mr. Wooll's Memoir, having inserted a few trifling notices from personal knowledge. I cannot here transcribe at length the delineation of his moral and literary character, with which his biographer concludes the present publication: but in the brief observations I shall make with candour, yet with frankness, my opinion both of that, and of the success with which Mr. Wooll has executed his task, will appear. Let me own then, that the volume now presented to the world, in some respects, does not quite answer my expectations. The life itself, considering it comes from one, who was a native of Winchester, who was brought up under Dr. Warton, and who seems to have had the advantage of all the family papers, is rather too sparing, not merely of incident, which literary men seldom supply, but of remarks, opinions, anecdotes, habits of study, and pictures of mind. In truth a great deal of what it tells, was known before. It is written with much talent, and elegance; and every where exhibits the scholar and the man of virtuous sentiment. But perhaps the important duties of Mr. Wooll's station have not given him time to fill his mind with all, which probably may be called the idlenesses of modern literature, but which

Vol. IV. No. 1. B

are yet necessary to give a rich and lively interest to the memoirs of a modern author; more especially of one, whose own mind abounded in that kind of knowledge.

In the next place, the correspondence which Warton himself left for publication, and which therefore, as it was well known how long and how widely he had been connected with persons of genius, excited the strongest curiosity, is, for the most part, slight and unimportant. It is true, the letters are, every one of them, those of eminent people but scarce any one written with any effort; or upon interesting subjects. What can

have become of the letters of the Wartons themselves? Or did they find no time, or no talent for epistolary exertion? For here are, I think, only sixteen of Dr. Warton; and only two of T. Warton. A few of them have nothing to do with either of the Wartons. Two or three of Dr. Johnson are interesting, as they relate to Collins, the poet.

Dr. Johnson to Dr. Warton,
March 8, 1754.

***. How little can we venture to exult in any intellectual powers, or literary attainments, when we consider the condition of poor Collins! I knew him a few years ago, full of hopes and full of projects, versed in many languages, high in fancy, and strong in retention. This busy and forcible mind is now under the government of those who lately would not have been able to comprehend the least and most narrow of its designs. What do you hear of him? Are there hopes of his recovery? Or is he to pass the remainder of his life in misery and degradation? Perhaps with complete consciousness of his. calamity."

Again, Dec. 24, 1754.

velut inter ignes

Luna minores,

"Poor dear Collins! Let me know,

whether you think it would give in whatever work it appears.

him pleasure, if I should write to

him. I have often been near his Mrs. Montagu, to Dr. Warton, state; and therefore have it in great commiseration.”

Again, April 15, 1756. *** "What becomes of poor dear Collins? I wrote him a letter, which he never answered. I suppose writing is very troublesome to him. That man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the uncertainty of fortune; and the transitoriness of beauty; but it is yet more dreadful to consider, that the powers of the mind are equally liable to change; that understanding may make its appearance, and depart; that it may blaze and expire!"

Collins died in this very year 1756. It is singular that, after Dr. Johnson had written about him with such ardent and eloquent affection, he could at a long subsequent period, when time generally meliorates the love of departed friends, and memory aggrandizes their images, speak of him with such splenetick and degrading criticism in his "Lives of the poets." Those lives, especially of his cotemporaries, powerful as they often are, have gone further to wards the suppression of rising genius, than any book our language has produced. They flatter the prejudices of dull men, and the envy of those who love not literary pursuits; and on this account, in addition to the wonderful force with which they are composed, have obtained a dangerous popularity, which has given a full effect to their poison.

The next best letter, is one, and indeed the only one, by Mrs. Montagu, whose correspondence always shines

17 Sept. 1782.

***." By opening to us the original and genuine books of the inspired poets, and distinguishing too what is really divine in them, you lead us back to true taste. Criticks that demand an ignorant submission, and implicit faith in their infallibility of judgment, or the councils of learned academies, passing degrees as arbitrary, could never establish a rational devotion to the muses, or mark those boundaries, which are rather guides than restraints. By the candour and impartiality, with which you examine and decide on the merits of the ancients and moderns, we are all informed and instructed; and I will confess I feel myself inexpressibly delighted with the praises you give to the instructor of, my early youth, Dr. Young, and the friends of my maturer age, Lord Lyttelton and Mr. West. Having ever considered the friend ship of these excellent persons as the greatest honour of my life, and endeavouring hourly to set before me their precepts, and their examples, I could not but be highly gratified by seeing you place a guard of laurel round their tombs, which will secure them from any mischievous impressions,envy may attempt to make. I do not love the wolf and the tiger, who assail the living passenger; but most of all beasts I abhor the vampire, who violates the tomb, profanes the sepulchre, and sucks the blood of sleeping men-cowardly, cruel, ungenerous, monster! You and your brother are criticks of another disposition; too supericur to be jealous, too good to be severe, you

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give encouragement to living authors, protection to the memories of those of former times; and instead of destroying monuments, you bestow them. I have often thought, with delighted gratitude, that many centuries after my little Essay on Shakespeare is lost and forgotten, the mention made of it in the History of English Poetry, the Essay on Pope, and Mr. Harris's Plilological Enquiries, will not only preserve it from oblivion, but will present it to opinion with much greater advantages than it originally appeared with. These reflections afford some of the happiest moments to

"Yours, &c. &c.

"ELIZ. MONTAGU."

To the juvenile poetry of Dr. Warton, which is here republished, scarce any thing new is added. Perhaps I may think that Mr. Wooll has rated his powers in this way, if we judge from these remains, a little too high; though there are some striking and appropriate traits in his delineation of them. Yet I must admit that "The Enthusiast, or Lover of Nature," written at the age of 18, is a rich and beautiful descriptive poem, and I will indulge no hyper-criticisms upon it. The Odes it is impossible to avoid comparing with those of his friend and rival, Collins, which were published in the same year, at the same age; and it is equally impossible to be blind to their striking inferiority. The Ode to Fancy has much merit; but it seems to me to want originality; and to be more an effort of mem

ory, than of original and predominant genius. The finest lines, consisting of 28, which begin at verse 59, were inserted subsequent to the first edition, a circumstance not noted by Mr. Wooll. The Ode to Content, (not in the first

edition) in the same metre as Collins's Ode to Evening, has great merit; but here again we are unfortunately too strongly reminded of its exquisite rival.* Warton has also an Ode to Evening, in which are some good stanzas. "The Dying Indian ;" and more particularly" The Revenge of America," are very fine; but the latter is too short for such a subject, and ends too abruptly. On the whole, I cannot honestly subscribe to Mr. Wooll, where he says: "There breathes through his poetry a genuinely spirited invention, a fervour which can alone be produced by an highly-inspired mind; and which, it is to be presumed, fairly ranks him amidst what he himself properly terms, "the makers and inventors ;" that is, the "real poets." There seems to be wanting these original and predominant Impressions, that peculiarity of character, which always accompany high genius, and which are exhibited in the poetry both of his brother Thomas, and. his cotemporary Beattie.

This opinion, if just, will not detract from Dr. Warton's critical talents. The power which feels, and the power which originates poetry, are totally distinct. The former no writer seems to have

* Dr. Warton, in a note to Milton's Translation of the 5th Ode, Lib. i. of Horace, in his brother's edition of that poet, says: "In this measure, my friend and school-fellow, Mr. William Collins, wrote his admired Ode to Evening; and I know he had a design of more Odes without writing many rhyme." T. Warton goes on to say, that Dr. I. Warton might have added, that his own Ode to Evening

was written before that of his friend Collins; as was a poem of his, entitled "The Assembly of the Passions ;"

before Collins's favourite Ode on that

subject." Mr. Wooll has inserted a prose sketch on this subject; but no poem.

possessed with more exquisite pre-. cision, than Dr. Warton; and I do not mean to deny that he possessed the latter in a considerable degree I only say that his powers of execution do not seem to have been equal to his taste.

But Dr. Warton's fame does not rest upon his poetry. As a critick in polite literature he stands in the foremost ranks. And Mr. Wooll, who being educated under him had the best opportunity of forming a just opinion, has delineated his character as a teacher with the highest and most discriminate praise. His vivacity, his benevolence, and his amiable temper, and moral excellencies have long been known; and are celebrated by his biographer with a fond admiration. But I must say, that Mr.

Wooll, in his dread of "descending to the minutia of daily habits,” has not left us a portrait sufficiently distinct. Nor has he given us any sufficiently bold touches, such as we had a right to expect in the life of one of the Wartons; while, unfortunately, here are scarce any original letters to supply the deficiency. I had hoped to have found materials for an interesting and energetick character; but, what Mr. Wooll has omitted, it would be rash for a stranger to attempt.

Mr. Wooll however promises another volume, and tho' I cannot hope that my suggestions will have any influence with him, yet pers. haps some one of more authority may induce him to favour the publick with a supplementary ac

count.

For the Anthology.

ORIGINAL LETTER.

INTERESTING ACCOUNT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF SEVERAL VILLAGES IN THE CANTON OF SCHWEITZ.

Geneva, Sept. 26th, 1806.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

WE have at length finished the tour of Switzerland, and add two more to the ten thousands, who have seen and admired before us. Mr. ******** has been my companion ever since we reluctantly parted with at Rotter

dam (15th of Aug.); and as he has a taste for the picturesque, and I have pretty good eyes, we have seen and enjoyed as much, as other gallopping travellers. You, I know, are rather curious in geography; and if you are at leisure to pore over a large map of Switzerland, you will have it in your power to trace your friend's route through this interesting country.

After a satisfactory journey up the Rhine, from Rotterdam through Utrecht, Nimeguen, Cleves, Cologne, Coblentz, Mayente, Worms, Strasburg, and Colmar, we entered Switzerland at Basle the 5th of September. For the sake of seeing the famous chute du Rhin we went fifty miles out of our way as far as Schaffhausen, passing through a part of the Brisgau, once belonging to the humbled house of Austria, but now given to the Prince of Baden. From Schaffhausen we travelled to Zurich, in my estimation the most eligible spot in Switzerland; thence we crossed mount Albis on our way to Lucerne, by a road almost too difficult for carriages. From Lucerne we sent our voiture

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