Leese Z ~ Bien ut ol μὰν wine ὅ. μὴ “45... coh eta ties weer oho ς , Mo 5) ae : ata 5 οἰλιυυνλρεῖγτων κεν αἰ ςτηκνεμε a δ mere Ν i ews τον Ἔρατεας ener
s 2 apa thai ace tg is τς 4 See Cree Conta ae Peer eee se tea age τυ ρει EM wt La Ma Mas ng pH Ne ama ΨΥ Potente ΣΤ πα pats fate? APE aN Ye υ “ αν ὟΝ ΩΣ
baal : ἢ epee : ᾿ ᾿ ΠΑΡ οὐδ. ares = : τ ; . Ν ν hae ee - ‘ οὶ Mate aan M2 σαν 5 nei ee : Pee rN ὑϑυ λον αν οναν
Vs ἘΝ a A ΠΗ ᾿ AGT _" Li a ' 7: δ ᾿ ἬΝ) " ' ΓΓ ᾿ ’ Ι + ᾿ ἽΝ ῃ + Π Ὁ 6 7 ἢ Ἢ _ ΠΟ Ὁ. 7 ᾿ : : ᾿ ᾿ ἡ) 1a Vi
° iw ' vy ; i 7 ᾿ " ΠῚ ϊ Ν coe} ᾿ i, ! 7 af " i. " in 11 ΝΙΝ Ὁ i = a; ὁ ΠΥ ᾿ im) i] "
" ᾿ 7 ver ᾿ i 7 ‘ai ; 7 an ΑΛ ᾿ Γ rH a a ny i ; ; i ἢ " ' Ν᾿ ᾿ | ᾿ ᾿ Ι i Ἂν Ι Uy = ᾿" ; ᾿ εν ᾿ | ῦ we pan 7 ES ' wf 7 Ξ ᾿ ; ‘i Ὥ i) ! I _ i) 7 ' j ᾿ I ᾿ τ ᾿ ᾿ i .-. 7 ᾿ 7 i : ᾿ | 1 ᾿ ele Ἢ
| ἊΣ biclde ᾿ | ton Ulbranaer.
eeptuter Ι. ee:
‘
+
FP aicasss yo was x ai
»
᾿ ΕΝ δὶ a | nodosa
THE
DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES
DEMONSTRATED.
BY THE, RIGHT REVEREND
WILLIAM Ay ARBURTON, }.}).,
LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER.
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED,
A DISCOURSE BY WAY OF GENERAL PREFACE:
CONTAINING SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE, WRITINGS, AND CHARACTER OF THE AUTHOR.
BY RICHARD HURD, D.D.,
LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER.
THE TENTH EDITION, CAREFULLY. REVISED. | LIBRARY OF PRINCETON
IN THREE VOLUMES, VOL, I.
OCT | 5 2004
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ==
LONDON: PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, 73, CHEAPSIDE.
MDCCCXLVI.
LONDON : PRINTED BY JAMES NICHOLS, HOXTON-SQUAREe
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE TENTH EDITION.
Turis edition of the Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated is a reprint of that in quarto, which was edited by bishop Hurd in 1788; except in the very few instances in which the latter differs, in matters of orthography, from the octavo edition of 1766, and from that of 1811.
Every man of letters is aware, that bishop Warburton consi-. dered it to be an affair of great consequence to distinguish the wit latent in his compositions by a formidable array of Italics, Smart Capirars, and CAPITALS. In the present edition all these, in their curious variety, have been observed and retained. Other peculiarities have likewise been preserved wherever they occurred. For instance: Variations will be found in spelling some proper names; as, Appion and Apion; Erectheus and Erechtheus ; Habbakkuk and Habakkuk; Judea and Judea; Manassah and Manasseh; Philistians and Philistines; Philo- Byblios and Philo-Biblios, &. Other proper names commence with a small letter, instead of a Capital : as, argonautic, christian, jews, romans, samothracians, &c.; while many common words, in the middle of a sentence, (such as Both, Other, Your, They, &c.,) are made, without any ostensible reason, to commence with a Capi- tal. Variations in spelling also will be met with, in administring and administering : antients and ancients ; copists, copiests, and copyists ; compleat and complete ; cosmogeny and cosmogony ; compartiments and compartments ; capacitied and capacitated ; defense and defence ; disasterous and disastrous ; enquiries and inquiries ; enobled and ennobled ; expresly and expressly ; em- baras and embarrass ; fantom and phantom ; forceable and forci- ble ; fullfilled and fulfilled ; grosly and grossly ; imbarassed and. embarrassed ; isle and aisle; lyes and lies; least and lest; mistery and mystery; marvelous and marvellous ; origine and origin ; ordonance and ordinance; obelisques and _ obelisks ; oftner and oftener ; prophane and profane ; paultry and paltry ; rally and ralley ; steddy and steady ; satyric and satiric ; strolers and strollers; strait and straight; tryal and trial; wrath and wroth ; worshiper and worshipper ; cum multis aliis. A mal- formation of the plural of nouns is occasionally exhibited: as in specieses and species’s, falsarys, Ptolemys, &c. The apos-
A 2
iv ADVERTISEMENT TO THE TENTH EDITION.
trophe which marks the genitive case plural, is frequently omitted : as in childrens children, mens minds, &ce.
Τὴ these and numerous other instances all bishop Warburton’s arbitrary and unaccountable anomalies have been scrupulously followed. The only case in which there is any intentional swerying from this practice is in the fifth book, where the proper distinction has been made between the noun prophecy and the verb prophesy ; both of them being often repeated, and having a misleading tendency when not discriminated according to modern orthography. In the multifarious notes too, the same scrupulous attention has been paid to his singularities, except m regard to the names of the authors quoted, and of their works ; in each of which an uniform system of reference has been adopted. When the sense of some of the extracts seemed to be incom- plete, on consulting the very editions of the Classic Writers and of the Christian Fathers from which they were professedly taken, it was not unfrequently found that an important word had been omitted, or a wrong one substituted: in both these cases, the correct reading is now given according to the particular copies to which bishop Warburton himself had referred. The only addition which it has been considered needful to make to the work, is a small note respecting Bayle in vol. 11. p. 432.
This attention to minutiz, which was strictly observed in seven or eight previous editions, may appear to be ridiculous affectation ; but such persons as have had any tolerable acquaint- ance with the caustic class of writers to which bishop Warburton belonged, and know that in these “ their ashes live their wonted fires,” will be very reluctant to disturb their manes by the least apparent neglect of literary punctilios, and especially of those in which he, as one of the modern commentators on Shakspeare, much delighted.*
* Great service was rendered to the cause of sound learning and legitimate criti- cism, and deserved ridicule poured on the arrogant presumption of pedantry, by the seasonable publication of EDwarps’s Letter to Dr. Warburton, and his “¢ Canons of Criticism.” The latter of these passed through several editions ; and allusion is made to its allowable and salutary raillery in the following verses, from Huppesrorp’s “ Wiccamical Chaplet,” by a very clever Winchester scholar, “on two publications entitled the editions of two of our. poets,” which were BENTLEY’s Milton and WarBURTON’S Shakspeare :—
‘When critic science first was known, Somewhere upon the Muses’ ground The pruning-knife of wit was thrown,— Not that which AnisTarcuus found. “ That had a stout and longer blade, Would at one stroke cut off a limb : This knife was delicately made, Not to dismember, but to trim.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE TENTH EDITION. Vv
Various have been the opinions of learned and clever men concerning the relative merits of this demonstration of “the Divine Legation of Moses ;” but, after all that has been written against it, every one will acknowledge that many of the great doctrines of orthodox theology incidentally receive important elucidation from certain parts of the argument. Unfortu- nately, however, this partial brightness is much too often obscured by its strange connexion with dark and doubtful senti- ments of the sceptical school, the origin of which cannot be mistaken: and I conceive it to be a matter of little difficulty for an intelligent reader to discover, in this protracted treatise, traces of the ruling principles in Warburton’s mind, which generally received their complexion from those of his principal friends at various periods in his life, from his early mtimacy with Conyers Middleton, down to the time when he devoted all his energies to supplant Bolingbroke in the affections of Pope ; and was ultimately successful in tearing from his lordship’s brow the enviable laurels with which it had been adorned by the poet :—
“ My guide, philosopher, and friend ! ”
It is a remarkable circumstance, that, toward the close of the work, the cogency of nearly all the valid objections against it (and they are numerous) has been, either directly or indirectly, admitted by bishop Warburton himself. But this is generally done with the adroitness of an old and practised tactician ; and the attentive student will be surprised to find many of these sweeping admissions secreted either in the corner of some
“ With a short harmless edge a-top, ’T was made like our prize-fighting swords : Pages and chapters *t would not lop, But cut off syllables and words.
“ Well did it wear ; and might have worn
Full many an age, yet ne’er the worse,
Till BenrLey’s hand its edge did turn On Mixvron’s adamantine verse.
“ WaRrBURTON seized the blunted tool, Scarce fit for oyster-opening drab: For critic use ’t was now too dull; But though it would not cut, *t would stab.
“ Then SHAKESPEARE bled, with every friend That loved the bard :—he tlhreaten’d further : And Heaven knows what had been the end, Had not Tom Epwarps cried out Murther !
** Confounded at the fearful word, Awhile he hid the felon steel ; Now gives it Mason, lends it HurD ; Ah! see what Gray and CowLeEy feel! ”
vi ADVERTISEMENT TO THE TENTH EDITION.
unpretending note, or, more frequently, in the unsuspected clause of a long sentence.
On the literary character of bishop Warburton the following high encomium has been bestowed by Dr. Thomas Chalmers :—
“Tn comparing Lardner on the one hand with Warburton on the other upon this question,” [the evidence for the mira- culous prevention of the attempt by the Emperor Julian to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem,] “it will be found that the preponderance of argumentative force is with the latter. His ‘Julian’ is one of the ablest and most characteristic of his specimens. For himself, he belongs to a genus, nowhere more abundantly exemplified than in the Church of England. We might conceive of erudition apart from strength, as in Lardner ; or of strength apart from erndition, as perhaps in Isaac Bar- row* and Butler; though it was not so much strength as sagacity that formed the characteristic of Butler’s mind. But it is the union of both,—the native and original vigour, along with stores of massive learning; the inherent power, conjoined with extensive scholarship; the momentum and the firm staple of their own independent authorship, along with the achieve- ment of unparalleled reading and research into the authorship of other men ; the creative literary power that yielded standard books from themselves, and yet the prodigious industry that enabled them to grapple with whole libraries, and to master the books innumerable of the predecessors who had gone before them: it is this combination of vast strength with vast acqui- sition and labour, that invests, and rightfully invests, with such might and authority, the Divines of our sister Establishment. We can imagine learning in feeble and impotent hands to be very inefficient ; but when learning is wielded by an arm of strength, then we have a mighty mstrument in the hold of a mighty agent; and the execution is irresistible. ΤῸ encounter a man of great personal and original vis is sufficiently formid- able ; but when to this are superadded the lore and the lan- guages of antiquity, and a vast and various information, the product of the converse of-many years with the tomes of other days, then can we perceive an adequate meaning for the epithets bestowed on the most celebrated heroes of the church-militant, —the irrefragable Doctor, the redoubted champion of the
* Had not Dr. Chalmers introduced this comparison between Dr. Isaac Barrow and bishop Warburton with a modest ‘* perhaps,” one might have been inclined to put in a demurrer to this opinion. The fact is, the scholarship of the former was far more varied and profound than that of the latter; of which many undeniable proofs might be adduced, were this the proper place for entering into such a dis-
cussion.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE TENTH EDITION. vii
faith, the great Goliath of sacred literature,—capax, profundus, eximius homo et venerabundus. The first name that occurs to us of one who conjoined this original strength with this acquired scholarship, is Grotius. But we are speaking now of the Church of England. Cudworth had both, Chillingworth had both, Brian Walton had both, Stillingfleet had both, Samuel Clarke had both, WARBURTON HAD PRE-EMINENTLY BOTH. The most recent example, perhaps, is Horsley, who had both. And Samuel Johnson, had he been an ecclesiastic, with the urgent stimulus of a preferment, to which he had no other avenue but his works, would, if fairly aroused from his con- stitutional lethargy, and resolutely set on the road of persever- ance, have been a perfect exemplar of both.”—‘ Works,” vol. 11. p. 267, 12mo edit.
The subjoined is an admirable specimen of the acute percep- tion and manly expression of Warburton, in relation to a subject which was introductory to much of the Arianism and refined infidelity that subsequently prevailed :—
“Yet as we have often seen writers deceived in their repre- sentations of pagan antiquity; and while zealously busy in giving such a one as they imagined favourable to Christianity, they have been all along disserving it: lest I myself should be suspected of having fallen into this common delusion, I shall beg leave, in the last place, to show, that it is just such a representa- tion of antiquity as this I have given, which can possibly be of service to our holy faith; and that, consequently, if what is here given be the true, it does revealed religion much service.
“This will best appear by considering the usual views men have had, and the consequent methods they have pursued, in ' bringing pagan antiquity into the scene.
“Their design has been, either to illustrate the reasonable- ness, or to show the necessity, of Christianity.
“Tf the subject were reasonableness, their way was to repre- sent this antiquity as comprehending all the fundamental truths concerning God and the soul which our holy religion hath revealed. But, as greatly as such a representation was supposed to serve their purpose, the infidels, we see, have not feared to join issue with them on the allowed fact ; and, with much plau- sibility of reasoning, have endeavoured to show, that therefore Christianity was not necessary. And this very advantage Tindal (under cover of a principle which some modern divines afforded him, of Christianity’s being only a republication of the religion of nature) obtained over some writers of considerable name.
“Tf the design were to show the necessity of Christianity,
viii ADVERTISEMENT TO THE TENTH EDITION.
they have then taken the other course, and (perhaps misled by a sense of the former mischief) run into the opposite extreme, in representing pagan antiquity as ignorant even of the first prin- ciples of religion and moral duty: Nay, not only that it knew nothing, but that nothing could be known; for that human reason was too weak to make any discoveries in these matters : Consequently, that there never was any such thing as natural religion; and that what glimmerings of knowledge men have had of this kind, were only the dying sparks of primitive tradi- tion. Here the infidel again turned their own artillery upon them, in order to dismount that boasted reasonableness of Chris- tianity, on which they had so much insisted: and, indeed, what room was there left to judge of it, after human reason had been represented as too weak and too blind to decide?
“Thus while they were contending for the reasonableness, they destroyed the necessity ; and aie they urged the necessity, they risked the reasonableness, of ἐπέπεσε. And these infi- del retortions had an irresistible force on the principles on which our advocates seemed to go; namely, that Christianity was only a republication of primitive natural religion.
“Tt appears, then, that the only view of antiquity which gives solid advantage to the Christian cause, is such a one as shows natural reason to be clear enough to perceive truth, and the necessity of its deductions when proposed; but not generally strong enough to discover it, and draw right deductions from it. Just such a view as this I have here given of antiquity, as far as relates to the point in question, which I presume to be the true, not only in that point, but likewise with regard to the state of natural religion in general; where we find human reason could penetrate very far into the essential difference of things; but, wanting the true principles of religion, the ancients neither knew the origin of obligation, nor the consequence of obedience. Revelation hath discovered these principles ; and we now won- der that such prodigies of parts and knowledge could commit the gross absurdities which are to be found in their best dis- courses on morality. But yet this does not hinder us from fall- ing into a greater and a worse delusion. For, having of late seen several excellent systems of morals, delivered as the -princi- ples of natural religion, which disclaim, or at least do not own, the aid of revelation, we are apt to think them, in good earnest, the discoveries of natural reason ; and so to regard the extent of its powers as an objection to the necessity of any further light. The objection is plausible, but sure there must be some mistake at bottom; and the great difference in point of excellence
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE TENTH EDITION. ix
between these,supposed productions of mere reason, and those real ones of the most learned ancients, will increase our sus- picion. The truth is, these modern system-makers had aids, which, as they do not acknowledge, so, I will believe, they did not perceive. These aids were the true principles of religion, delivered by revelation: principles so early imbibed, and so clearly and evidently deduced, that they are now mistaken to be amongst our first and most natural ideas. But those who have studied antiquity know the matter to. be far otherwise.” *
This quotation is valuable for the reason which I have men- tioned ; but it is clogged with the awkward allusion to the author’s own lucid “view of antiquity,” which on examination will be seen to partake largely of the rather too recondite erudi- tion of bishop Hurd, his fidus Achates in classical matters. But I have cited the entire passage from “the Divine Legation,” chiefly for the purpose of appending the following interesting note which belongs to it, and which furnishes a still better spe- cimen of the masterly manner in which he was qualified to dispose of many difficult subjects in history and theology :—
“ Justification by faith alone, built upon the doctrine of the redemption of mankind by the death and sacrifice of Christ, was the great gospel-principle on which Protestantism was founded, when the churches of the north-west of Europe first shook off the yoke of Rome: by some perhaps pushed too far, in their abhorrence of the Popish doctrine of merit : the Puritan schism amongst us being made on the panic fancy, that the church of Baeland had not receded far enough from Rome. However, pistiGcution by faith alone being a ες it was received as the badge of true Protestantism by all; when the Puritans (first driven by persecution from religious into civil faction, and thoroughly heated into enthusiasm by each faction, in its turn) carried the doctrine to a dangerous and impure antinomianism. This fanatic notion soon after produced the practical virtues of these modern saints. The mischiefs which ~ ensued are well known. And no small share of them has been ascribed to this impious abuse of the doctrine of justification by faith alone ; first by depreciating morality, and then by dis- pensing with it.
“ When the Constitution was restored, and had brought into credit those few learned Divines whom the madness of the pre- ceding times had driven into obscurity, the church of England, still smarting with the wounds it had received from the abuse of the great gospel-principle of faith, very wisely laboured to
* Divine Legation,” vol. i. pp. 508510.
Χ ADVERTISEMENT TO THE TENTH EDITION.
restore morality, the other essential part of the Chyistian system, to its rights, in the joint direction of the faithful. Hence, the encouragement the church gave to those noble discourses which did such credit to religion, in the licentious times of Charles the Second, composed by these learned and pious men, abused by the zealots with the nickname ‘ Latitudinarian Divines.’ The reputation they acquired by so thoroughly weeding out these rank remains of fanaticism, made their successors fond of sharing with them in the same labours: a laudable ambition, but too often mixed with a vain passion for improving upon those who have gone successfully before. The church was now triumph- ant. The sectaries were humbled ; sometimes oppressed ; always regarded with an eye of jealousy and aversion; till at length this gospel-principle of faith came to be esteemed, by those who should have known better, as wild and fanatical. While they who owned its divine original found so much difficulty in adjust- ing the distinct rights and prerogatives of faith and morality, that, by the time this century was ready to commence, things were come to such a pass, (morality was advanced so high, and faith so depressed and encumbered with trifling or unintelligible explanations,) that a new definition of our holy religion, in oppo- sition to what its Founder taught, and unknown to its early followers, was all in fashion ; under the title of a ‘ Republica- tion of the Religion of Nature:’ natural religion, it seems, as well as Christianity, teaching the doctrine of life and immor- tality. So says a very eminent prelate.* And the gospel, which till now had been understood as but coeval with redemp- tion, was henceforth to be acknowledged as old as the creation.”
The work abounds in noble passages of this description, pos- sessing no merely evanescent interest, but worthy at all times of attentive perusal and deep consideration. Whatever opinion may be entertained concerning the vague and desultory manner in which he has attempted to establish his main proposition, which he usually abandons to its fate on the appearance of any petty adversary, “the Divine Legation of Moses” will always be regarded by the learned as the production of a writer en- dowed with no ordinary powers of mind, and as containing useful allusions to the current literature and theology of the author’s times,—half a century of stirrmg events, important
in their consequences. JAMES NICHOLS.
HoxTon-sQuaRrE, March 6th, 1846.
* “SHERLOCK’S ‘ Sermons,’ vol. i. serm. vi.”’
CONTENTS.
Page. BisHop HuRp'’s ADVERTISEMENT TO THE EDITION OF 1788 ..,...00-2es0+5. XV
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
SECTION I.
FROM HIS BIRTH, IN 1698, TO HIS BEING APPOINTED PREACHER OF LINCOLN’S INN, IN 1746.
His family—birth—education—and preparatory studies—entrance into holy orders —and preferment of Brandt-Broughton—extraordinary application to his studies —Alliance between Church and State—account of that work—and its recep- tion—Publishes the first volume of the Divine Legation—his friendship with the bishops Hare and Sherlock—Vindication of himself against Webster— His acquaintance with Dr. Middleton—his conduct towards him—Recommen- dation of him by Bishop Hare to Queen Caroline—death of that Princess— Continuance of his studies at Brandt-Broughton—Vindicates the Essay on Man against Crousaz—-acquaintance with Mr. Pope—publishes a second edi- tion of Divine Legation—Connexion with Sir Thomas Hanmer— Death of Bishop Hare—and character— Publishes the second volume of Divine Legation ~-idea of that work—further account of Dr. Middleton—intimate friendship with Mr. Pope—effects of it—Mr. Pope’s death—Introduction to Mr. Murray and Mr. Allen—characters of those eminent persons—defends the Divine Lega- tion against several writers—declines going to Ireland with Lord Chesterfield —his marriage—and appointment to the Preachership of Lincoln’s Inn...... 3
SECTION II.
TO HIS BEING PROMOTED TO THE SEE OF GLOUCESTER, IN 1760.
Publishes Shakespear’s works—reception and character of that edition— Vindicates Mr. Pope against Lord Bolingbroke—Digression, on Mr. Addison’s treatment of Mr. Pope—Publishes his Julian—how received at home and abroad—Death and character of Dr. Middleton-—His edition of Mr. Pope’s works—His ser- mons at Lincoln’s-Inn, and character of them—Some account of his prefer- ments—Death of Lord Bolingbroke—-publication of his philosophy —and refu- tation of it—His sentiments of Mr. Hume’s essays, and Natural History of Religion—his animadversions on the latter—a new and correct edition of the first volume of Divine Legation—answers some objections of Archbishop Secker—character of that Prelate—and of his friend Bishop Butler—Promo- tion to the Deanery of Bristol, and to the Bishopric of Gloucester ........ 27
.
SECTION III.
TO HIS DEATH, IN 1777.
Reflections on his advancement to the episcopate—his conduct in that station—Ser- mon on the 30th of January—Censure of Lord Clarendon’s History—and Neal’s History of the Puritans—and of Tindal’s Christianity as Old as the Creation — Revises his Sermons— reprints his Discourse on the Lord’s Supper— publishes his Doctrine of Grace—new edition of the second volume of Divine
xii CONTENTS.
Page.
Legation addressed to Lord Mansfield—remarkable appendix to this edition - character of Bishop Lowth—New edition of the Alliance—applies himself to the completion of the ninth book of Divine Legation—account of this work— why undertaken so late, and left unfinished—founds his lecture on Propheey— loses his son—decline of his health and parts—his death ..............--
SECTION IV. : HIS CHARACTER, Moral virtues—love of letters—idea of him, as a Waiter; particularly a contro- versial writer; vindication of him in that respect—and as a DiviINE, properly so called—His companionable qualities—private friendships—Characters of
Mr. Town and Dr. Balguy-—his foibles, of what sort, and to what owing— Brief account of this edition—Conclusion............ecececcccscesecs-
APPENDIX TO THE LIFE.
Mettersto ΜΓ ΒΟΤΙΒ. «\ncleteiags sinvol«. « «c1s's site κίας εκ τ © cee acsinias ere ce nee eens
Mettersto Mrs: COCKDUID, ον οὐκ οἱ τι ιδιο juss leusies δι ριριο, <0). eaishele lacie CeCe
DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES.
DEDICATION TO A NEW EDITION OF BOOKS 1. 11. IM. IN 1754, TO THE Ear OF HARDWICKE........- tate wiehel= ΟΣ fo mbalmimaiatiate a et ototers o eite elses Seo OS
43
"
σι
“I to
“I ~
DEDICATION TO THE FIRST EDITION OF BOOKS I. I. Ifl. IN 1738, TO THE FREE- ἢ
ΒΥ ΝΈΟΥΣ oteverassiese 2 ον κυ δ κε nis © ttererere cre oOo TIE Se ae eee eee
PosrscRIPT TO THE DEDICATION TO THE FREE-THINKERS, IN THE EDITION
OMI GOi Asis oyj5 stave tie tore. σεῖς φόρος τας τὰ ἀσσενο ane OT ἔμεν Cae EEE ἐς
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF BOOKS I. JJ. Ill. IN 1738 ...-.....c0e
BOOK TI.
PROVES THE NECESSITY OF THE DOCTRINES OF A FUTURE STATE OF REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS TO CIVIL SOCIETY, FROM THE NATURE OF THE THING SECTION
I.—The introduction, the nature of internal evidence; the occasion of this dis- CODESE;/ aNd ΠΡ PrOMOS WON cys ον τς cle (elsistsiaiesicie eiatel= iminiois cisterns eee
Il.
Of the original of civil society; the causes of its defective plan—That this defect can be only supplied by religion—That religion, under the present dis- pensation of providence, cannot subsist without the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments; therefore that doctrine necessary to civil society
111.—The arguments of those who deny the necessity of religion to society consi- dered-—Pomponatius falsely ranked in that number, and vindicated—Cardan characterized iand'censurede πο πτὺς τ τ hlsiai l= cla je fatelmeteta tele oe -.
ιν. and V.—Mr. Bayle, the great defender of this paradox in his apology for atheism, examined—His arguments collected, methodized, and confuted—In the course of this disputation, the true foundation of morality enquired into, and shewn to be neither the essential difference of things, nor the moral sense, but the will of God—The causes of the contrary errors shewn ; and the objec- tions against morality’s being founded in the will of God, answered .... 128,
Vi.—The Author of the Fable of the Bees, who contends that it is Vice, and not
108
113
128
145
Virtue, that is useful to society, examined, exposed, and confuted.......... 155
CONTENTS.
BOOK II.
xili
Page.
PROVES THE NECESSITY OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE TO SOCIETY, FROM THE CONDUCT OF THE ANCIENT LAWGIVERS, AND FOUNDERS OF
CIVIL POLICY, . cece cect cece cere recs neces r estes ereeseesec eer csesees
SECTION
I.—-The magistrate’s care in cultivating religion, shewn, 1. From the universality of it, amongst all civil policied nations—2. From the genius of pagan reli- gion, both with regard to the nature of their gods, the attributes assigned to them, and the mode of worship in civil use amongst them ....-.--..-+..-.
11.—The particular arts the legislator employed to this purpose: as, 1. the univer- sal practice ef pretending to inspiration—It is shewn that this was done to establish the opinion of the superintendency of the gods over human affairs : not to secure the reception of their laws; nor to render those laws perpetual and immutable when received .. 2... 00 ee cece ee ee cece ee eter eet teweess
il].—The next art the legislator used was to preface his laws with the doctrine of a providence in its full extent—The prefaces to the laws of Zaleucus and Charondas, the only remains of this kind, proved genuine against the argu- ments of a learned critic ........ Sgssaveeodh hoped τσ ΘΟ στ oS
[ν.-- ΤῊ next art was the legislator’s invention of the mysteries, solely instituted for the propagation and support of the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments—Their original and progress deduced: their nature and end explained: their secrets revealed: and the causes of the degeneracy accounted for—To give a compleat idea of this important institution, the sixth book of Virgil is examined, and the descent of Atneas into hell, shewn to be only an initiation into, and representation of the shews of the mysteries......--....
Appendix to the Four First Sections.. .......-...--- yay Pee ised Ε ise wicket
V.—The next instance of the magistrate’s care of religion, in establishing a national worship— That an established religion is the universal voice of nature—The right of establishing a religion justified, in an explanation of the true theory of the union between Church and State—This theory applied as a rule to judge of the actual establishments in the pagan world—The causes that facilitated the establishment of religion amongst them ; as likewise those causes that hin- dered their establishments from receiving their due form......-..--- sie esnce
V1.—The last instance of the magistrate’s care for the support of religion; in the allowance of a general toleration—The measure and causes of it—The nature of the ancient tolerated religions—How, under the supervision and direction of the magistrate—And how first violated and destroyed by civil tyranny ......
INGsestommtae; Second ΒΌΘΕ.- - -τἰττςς κε τς κα cielo) sis) ois1s «ele Ὁ οἰκου δον ole ojels\» sisieis
BOOK III.
PROVES THE NECESSITY OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE TO SOCIETY, FROM THE OPINION AND CONDUCT OF THE ANCIENT SAGES AND PHILO-
SOPHERS ce ccve wc cece ἘΠ sree essere seessses sees eeeesssses
SECTION
I.—Testimonies of ancient sages and philosophers, concerning the necessity of the doctrine of a future state to civil society - - - - - τον τσ σ τσ σε κκκ eee ee ee + cee
1I1.—That none of the ancient philosophers believed the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, though, on account of its confessed necessity to the support of religion, and consequently of civil society, all the theistical philo- sophers sedulously taught it to the people—The several senses in which the Ancients conceived the permanency of the human soul explained—Several general reasons premised, to shew that the ancient philosophers did not always believe what they tanght, and that they taught the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments without believing it—Where the principles that
165
165
193
312
339
359
380
407
407
xiv CONTENTS.
Page. induced the ancient sages to make it lawful to deceive for public good, in matters of religion, are explained, whereby they are seen to be such as had no place in the propagation or genius of the Jewish and Christian religions—
In the course of this enguiry, the rise, progress, perfection, decline, and genius of the ancient Greek philosophy, under its several divisions, are considered and OXPlGIned ovis. ς οἶς νον ove cia πο seit ΡΤ γι τω: Soiree DEB Sob uel
I11.—Enters on a particular enquiry into the sentiments of each sect of philosophy on this point —The division and succession of their schools—The character of Socrates; and of the new and old Academy——The character and genius of each sect of the grand Quaternion of theistic philosophy, the Pythagoric, the Platonic, the Peripatetic, and the Stoic: shewing that not one of these believed the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments—The character of Tully, and his sentiments on this point—The original of the ancient fables, and of the doctrines of the Metempsychosis, and Metamorphosis, occasionally inguired ;antoyandyexplained) (Wace okictactle «ἐν cele ieee ee ΠΡ .. 428
IV.—Shews, in order to a fuller conviction, that the ancient philosophers not only did not, but that they could not possibly believe a future state of rewards and punishments, because two metaphysical principles, concerning the nature of God, and of the human soul, which entirely overturn the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, were universally held and believed by all the Greek philosophers—These doctrines examined and explained—In the course of this enquiry, the true genius of the ancient Egyptian wisdom explained ; and their pretended philosophy, as delivered by the later Greek writers, shewn to be spurious—The section concludes with the use to be made of this remark- able fact (of the ancient philosophers not believing, and yet sedulously teaching, a future state of rewards and punishments) for the support of our main ques-
ἐπ Sio'sizsielaie cians we'e oto cla !aiclate a'elelate's sie ste ne siotd = oer πο asics Selene ON V.—This account of the ancient philosophy, so far from being prejudicial to Chris- tianity, that it greatly credits and recommends it—Proved from the mischiefs that attend those different representations of paganism, in the two extremes, which the defenders of religion are accustomed to make: where it is shewn that the difference in point of perfection, between the ancient and modern systems of morality, is entirely owing to Christianity .................2.-. 507
For the remainder of the Contents of Book III. see the Contents of the second volume.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE EDITION OF 1788.
Tue Reader will expect some account of the Life, Writings, and Character of the Author to be prefixed to this complete edition of his Works. He is therefore informed, that a Dis- course to that effect hath been prepared, and will be published ; but not now, for reasons that will be seen hereafter. However, it may be proper to add, that the purchaser of this edition will be entitled to a Copy of the Discourse, whenever it comes out, on his producing a ticket, which for that purpose will be *delivered to him by the Bookseller.
All I have to say, at present, of the Author’s Works, is, That they have been printed carefully from his last corrections and improvements; and arranged in that order, which was judged most convenient.
Of the new tracts, included in this edition, the most consi- derable is, The nintu Book of the Divine Legation ; printed, so far as it goes, by the Author himself, but left unfinished. This Discourse must be interesting to the reader ; but will not appear to have all the novelty which he may expect. The reason is, that the Author had laid aside all thoughts of com- pleating this book for many years, and had, in the mean time, employed some parts of it in his other Works. From these, when he at length resumed that intention, he extracted many passages, which are now again inserted in their place.
Thus much I thought fit to say of this additional Book, that the Reader may come the better prepared to the perusal of it. For the rest, he is referred to the Author’s Lire at large.
R. WORCESTER. GREAT RuSSELL-STREET, BLOOMSBURY, February 6th, 1788.
τὴ ΠΝ ΔΗ He ΚΗ i atl
7 Pisa omen Hw dpi avi ᾿υγαγμιμρφὴ gata ὧν Δ} is? Ditch οὐ λυ oper Ce oe Pe ite ce sat ih).
i.
δῶν DS τ ee a ie. ay pe ln ᾿ τς
ne a >
ὧν Ἰϑεδὰ CAR ΜΑΣ 4 Py er ens Fh dhe sed ope ah ti ; PY Pe tise ean werd |
bee ayia ye Peau ae ye ΤῊ 5
eee yh ages: ele τ ΩΝ ΠΣ a Wg (irk lec ge a:
eee gece lt κἀν DR Ae sui Satan Ore ; . fos Ἐν: τηψήδοιν uit oo? yg eh aan
, vs aes ta sip ie 7 ἀγα irda ae ῳ ye a Ls The ἦ ΠΝ ater, ΠΌΤΟΝ iain ὌΡΗ i é Εἰ ΜΉΝ; ey
Tite, τἀ RNY, wa! }} "ἢ te ‘pace ie ΗΡ wy ΕΥ̓ Oh Pole pay!) ἢ oe at te αὐτῷ , τς ete Ga “nee iy rei
Ee a) Tod tat Sven walang, ὁ ook) pen ae μὴν ἣν hoi Maha ΓΝ μὰ soltte ak aie ae a lena yom. vit RRR The ‘yan το, Bray Lae? pee it ‘Alta? bly wine Brat batt ap ve othe Selb sal wun τ
δ σι ΜΠ eh tun μῆνες atin rfl diate Ahh a:
ἢν ἡ μὰ: va Lao »"-.
ony TPS pier tt va oa ah ¥ “teh Pe ἡ ι,5 ee ty ua EE ACRE ATE 4 A A AE ee 4 eT
my 7 = ORG atts " ae harp uve 8 Vw en wath .Ἶ περόνην
| Ping yd a city hi. git: bedi hie, } ΓΙ » he pimple asp vith ἘΞ Δ HARB) (inthe ἐμὴν ΠΤ of
hh ΔῸΣ Howitt ot. oe Aprweitive: sap” site Haat oth ΠΝ ἂν wets 4
- . > se ' ῃ ----- «(ὦ
Sansa. : 7 > | aera toon ror vain Ἂ πὰ ἢ Sev hg Ὁ, ΟΝ J ; 2 b
A DISCOURSE,
BY WAY OF GENERAL PREFACE
το
THE WORKS OF BISHOP WARBURTON :
CONTAINING
SOME ACCOUNT
OF
THE LIFE, WRITINGS, AND CHARACTER
or
THE AUTHOR.
BY THE RIGHT REVEREND RICHARD HURD, D.D.
LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER.
VOL. 1. B
Wawona ας Ὁ
᾿ ἀὐριμα ψεμονκο 10 YAW te as PAOPAUAAL be τὸ Ow, Se
2) wae ΠΝ oa
farcry aoa * aes
ὅτ ‘ ὃ
HATONT! we it ων - |
~ - .-Ἄ ι ᾿ | 7 " ΝΜ Η "ἢ ‘ ᾿ oid ὼ ΠΡ: 3 J
ΤΠ ΕΠ ’ < ἘΝ
γί...
ad arnt αἰλίοιι κι αι. ον EL = πο τυχών, οὐκωψενγδν.} a
pi ᾿ is) ᾿ ων ἢ ι ὅθε : wiry
THE
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
FIRST PRINTED IN MDCCXCIV.
Wiii1aAM WarsuRTON was descended from an ancient and very considerable family in Cheshire, at the head of which is the present Sir Peter Warburton, Baronet, of Arley, in that county.
I leave the rest to the genealogist ; and go no farther back in his pedigree than to his grandfather, of the same name, who distinguished himself in the civil wars of the last century. He was of the royal party, and showed his zeal and activity in that cause, by serving under Sir George Booth at the affair of Chester. I mention this little circum- stance chiefly for the use I shall make of it elsewhere. All that I know more of him is, that he married Frances, daughter of Robert Awfield, of Etson, in the county of Nottingham, by whom he had three sons ; the second of whom, George, was Mr. Warburton’s father.
It seems probable that upon this marriage he removed into Notting- hamshire. His residence was at Shelton, a village about six miles from Newark, where he died.
Mr. George Warburton, the second son, as I observed, of William Warburton, Esq., of Shelton, was bred to the law. He settled at Newark, where he practised as an attorney, and was particularly esteemed for his integrity in that profession.
He married Elizabeth, daughter of William Hobman, alderman of Newark, and had by this marriage five children, George, Wiliam, Mary, Elizabeth, and Frances.
George died very young. William, the subject of this memoir, was born at Newark, December 24th, 1698. He was first put to school there under Mr. Twells, whose son afterwards married his sister, Eliza- beth: but he had the chief part of his education at Okeham, in Rut- landshire, under Mr. Wright. Here he continued till the beginning of the year 1714; when his cousin, Mr. Warburton, who also bore the name of William, being made head-master of the school at Newark, he returned to his native place, and was for a short time under the care of that learned and respectable person, of whom more will be said pre- sently. I only now add, that he was father to the Rev. Thomas War-
B 2
4 : THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
burton, the present very worthy archdeacon of Norfolk, to whom I am indebted for the particulars here mentioned concerning his family.
I cannot, I confess, entertain the reader of this narrative with those encomiums which are so commonly lavished on the puerile years of eminent men. On the best inquiry I have been able to make, I do not find that, during his stay at school, he distinguished himself by any extraordinary efforts of genius or application. My information authorizes me to go no further than to say, that he loved his book and his play just as other boys did. And, upon reflection, I am not displeased with this modest testimony to his merit; for I remember what the best judges have thought of premature wits. And we all know that the mountain-oak, which is one day to make the strength of our fleets, is of slower growth than the saplings which adorn our gardens.
But although no prodigy of parts or industry in those early years, with a moderate share of each, he could not fail of acquiring by the age of sixteen, the time when he left school, a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin, under such masters as those of Okeham and Newark.
Τὸ had been his misfortune to lose his father very early. He died in 1706; and the care of his family devolved, of course, upon his widow ; who, as we have seen, gave her son the best school-education, and, in all respects, approved herself so good a woman, as well as parent, that her children paid her all possible respect : her son in par- ticular, all whose affections were naturally warm, gave her every proof of duty and observance while she lived, and after her death retained | so tender a regard to her memory, that he seldom spake of her but | with tears. |
The circumstances of the family could be but moderate ; and when | Mr. Warburton had now finished his education at school, he was des- | tined by his friends to that profession which is thought to qualify men — best for the management of their own affairs, and which his father had followed with so much credit in that neighbourhood. |
He was accordingly put out clerk to Mr. Kirke, an eminent attorney | of Great Markham in Nottinghamshire, in April, 1714, and continued | with that gentleman five years, that is, till the spring of the year | 1719. ‘Tradition does not acquaint us how he acquitted himself in — his clerkship: probably, with no signal assiduity; for now it was | that the bent of his genius appeared in a passionate love of reading, | which was not lessened, we may believe, but increased, by his want | of time and opportunity to indulge it.
However, in spite of his situation, he found means to peruse again and digest such of the classic authors as he had read at school, with many others which he understood to be in repute with men of learn- ing and judgment. By degrees he also made himself acquainted with
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. δ
the other elementary studies ; and, by the time his clerkship was out, had laid the foundation, as well as acquired a taste, of general know- ledge.
Still, the opinion and expectation of his friends kept him in that profession to which he had been bred. On the expiration of his clerk- ship, he returned to his family at Newark ; but whether he practised there or elsewhere as an attorney, I am not certainly informed. How- ever, the love of letters growing every day stronger in him, it was found advisable to give way to his inclination of taking orders; the rather, as the seriousness of his temper and purity of his morals con- curred, with his unappeasable thirst of knowledge, to give the surest presages of future eminence in that profession.
He did not venture, however, all at once to rush into the church. His good understanding, and awful sense of religion, suggested to him the propriety of making the best preparation he could, before he offered himself a candidate for the sacred character. Fortunately for him, his relation, the master of Newark school, was at hand to give him his advice. And he could not have put himself under a better direction ; for, besides his classical merit, which was great, he had that of being an excellent divine, and was a truly learned as well as good man.
To him then, as soon as his resolution was taken of going into orders, he applied for assistance, which was afforded him very liberally, **My father,’ says Mr. Archdeacon Warburton, in a letter to me, “employed all the time he could spare from his school in instructing him, and used to sit up very late at night with him to assist him in his studies.” And this account I have heard confirmed by his pupil him- self; who used to enlarge with pleasure on his obligations to his old tutor, and has celebrated his theological and other learning in a handsome Latin epitaph which he wrote upon him after his death.
At length he was ordained deacon the 22d of December, 1723, in the cathedral of York, by archbishop Dawes ; and even then he was in no haste to enter into priests’ orders, which he deferred taking till he was full twenty-eight years of age, being ordained priest by bishop Gibson in St. Paul’s, London, March the Ist, 1726-27.
Some will here lament that the precious interval of nine years, from his quitting school in 1714 to his taking orders, was not spent in one of our universities, rather than his private study, or an attorney’s office. And it is certain, the disadvantage to most men would have been great. But an industry and genius like his overcame all difficulties. It may even be conceived that he derived a benefit from them. As his faculties were of no common size, his own proper exertion of them probably tended more to his improvement, than any assistance of tutors and colleges could have done. To which we may add, that, living by
6 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
himself, and not having the fashionable opinions of a great society to bias his own, he might acquire an enlarged turn of mind, and strike out for himself, as he clearly did, an original cast both of thought and composition : “« Fastidire lacus et rivos ausus apertos :”
while his superior sense, in the mean time, did the office of that author- ity which, in general, is found so necessary to quicken the diligence, and direct the judgment, of young students in our universities.
The fact is, that, without the benefit of an academical education, he had qualified himself, in no common degree, for deacons’ orders in 1723; and from that time till he took priests’ orders in the beginning of the year 1727, he applied himself diligently to complete his studies, and to lay in that fund of knowledge which is requisite to form the consummate divine. For to this character he reasonably aspired ; haying that ardour of inclination which is the earnest of success, and feeling in himself those powers which invigorate a great mind, and push it on irresistibly in the pursuit of letters.
The fruits of his industry, during this interval, appeared in some pieces composed by him for the improvement of his taste and style, and afterwards printed, most of them without his name, to try the judgment of the public. As he never thought fit to reprint or revise them, they are omitted in this edition. But they are such as did him no discredit ; on the contrary, they showed the vigour of his parts, and the more than common hopes which might be entertained of such a writer.
Among these “blossoms of his youth,” to borrow an expression from Cowley, were some notes communicated to Mr. Theobald, and inserted in his edition of Shakspeare ; which seems to have raised a general idea of his abilities, before any more important proof had been given of them. But of this subject more will be said in its place.
It was also in this season of early discipline, while his mind was opening to many literary projects, that he conceived an idea, which he was long pleased with, of giving a new edition of Velleius Paterculus. He was charmed with the elegance of this writer; and the high credit in which emendatory criticism, of which Paterculus stood much in need, was held in the beginning of this century, occasioned by the dazzling reputation of such men as Bentley and Hare, very naturally seduced a young enterprising scholar into an attempt of this nature. Tow far he proceeded in this work, I cannot say ; but a specimen of it afterwards appeared in one of our literary journals, and was then communicated to his friend, Dr. Middleton ; who advised him, very properly, to drop the design, “as not worthy of his talents and indus- try, which,” as he says, “instead of trifling on words, seem caleu- lated rather to correct the opinions and manners of the world.”
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 4
These juvenile essays of his pen, hasty and incorrect as they were, contributed, no doubt, very much to his own improvement. What effect they had on his reputation, and how soon they raised it to a considerable height among his friends, will be seen from the following curious fact. .
In the year 1726, a dispute arose among the lawyers about, the judi- cial power of the Court of Chancery. It is immaterial to observe on what points the controversy turned, or with what views it was agi- tated. It opened with a tract called, ‘The History of the Chancery ; relating to the judicial Power of that Court, and the Rights of the Master;”’ printed without a name, but written, as was generally known, by a Mr. Burrough ; and so well received by the lord chancellor King, that he rewarded the author of it, the same year, with a mastership in chancery.
To this book an answer presently appeared, under the name of, “A Discourse of the Judicial Authority of the Master of the Rolls ;”’ and - so well composed, that they who favoured the cause of the Historian saw it must suffer in his hands, if it were not supported by some bet- ter writer than himself, who was evidently no match for the Discourser.
In this exigency, he was advised by one of his friends (I forget, or never heard, his name) to have recourse to Mr. Warburton, as a person very capable of supplying his defects. Accordingly, when he had pre- pared the proper materials for a reply, he obtained. leave to put them into Mr, Warburton’s hands, and afterwards spent some time with him in the country; where, by their joint labours, the whole was drawn out, and digested into a sizable volume, which came out in 1727, and was entitled, ‘The Legal Judicature in Chancery stated.’ This book was so manifestly superior to the ““ History,” that such of the profession as were not in the secret, wondered at Mr. Burrough’s proficiency in the art of writing; and the lord chancellor King, as much as any body. The author of the “ Discourse” saw it concerned him to take notice of such an adversary, and in 1728 reprinted his work ‘‘ with large additions, together with a preface, occasioned by a book entitled, ‘The Legal Judicature in Chancery stated.’”? And with this reply, I believe, the dispute closed.
Many years afterwards, the secret being now of no consequence, Mr. Warburton chanced to mention, in conversation, to Mr. Charles Yorke, the part he had taken m this squabble; when Mr Yorke smiled, and said he fancied he was not aware who had been his antagonist ; and then named his father, the lord chancellor Hardwicke, who, though attorney-general at the time, had undertaken to plead the cause of his relation, Sir Joseph Jekyll, then master of the rolls. But I have dwelt, perhaps, too long on this little anecdote.
Upon Mr. Warburton’s taking priests’ orders, Sir Robert Sutton
8 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
procured for him the small vicarage of Griesley,'in Nottinghamshire ; and in 1728, presented him to the rectory of Brand-Broughton, in the diocess of Lincoln. He was also, the same year, and, I suppose, by the same interest, put upon the king’s list of masters of arts, created on his majesty’s visit to the university of Cambridge.
Brand-Broughton was a preferment of some value, and, from its situation in the neighbourhood of Newark, pleased him very much. Here then he fixed himself, with his family, and spent the best part of his life; that is, from 1728 to 1746.
They who are unacquainted with the enthusiasm which true genius inspires, will hardly conceive the possibility of that intense application with which Mr. Warburton pursued his studies in that retirement. Impatient of any interruptions, he spent the whole of his time that could be spared from the duties of his parish, in reading and writing. His constitution was strong, and his temperance extreme; so that he needed no exercise but that of walking; and a change of reading or study was his only amusement.
His mother and sisters, who lived with hmm, and were ae eee of the hurt he might do himself by this continued industry, would invite themselves to drink coffee with him im his study after dinner, and contrive to lengthen their stay with him as much as they could. But when they had retired, they saw no more of him that evening ; and his sister, Mrs. Frances Warburton, told me, that he usually sat up a great part of the night. What is most extraordinary, the vigour of his parts was such, that his incessant labour neither wearied his spirits, nor affected his health.
In this way it was that he acquired that habit of deep thmking, with that extensive erudition, which afterwards astonished the reader in his works, and made himself acquainted with the whole range of polite and elegant learning, in the way of diversion, and in the inter- yal of his graver studies.
I express myself with exact propriety. For it was his manner at this time, and the habit continued with him through life, to intermix his literary pursuits in such sort as to make the lighter relieve the more serious ; and these again, in their turn, temper and correct the other. He was passionately fond of the more sublime poets, and, what is very uncommon, had almost an equal relish for works of wit and humour. One or other of these books he had always lying by him, and would take up when he found himself fatigued with study ; and, after spending some time in this sort of reading, was so much refreshed by it, that he returned with new life to the work he was upon; and so made these amusements, which are apt to get the mastery of com- mon minds, and to exhaust their whole force, only subservient to his more important meditations.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 9
And this humour (to observe it by the way) of associating the so different powers of reason and fancy in the course of his studies, passed into his style, and indeed formed one distinctive character of it. For in all his writings, on whatever subject, you see him occa- sionally ennoble his expression by picturesque imagery, or enliven it by strokes of wit: and this (though the practice be against rule) with so much ease, and with so little affectation, that none but a very captious or very dull reader can take offence at it.
With that passion for letters which, as I observed, transported Mr. Warburton at this time, the sobriety of his judgment is to be admired. The little taste he had had of fame in the early publications before alluded to, did not corrupt his mind, or seduce him into a premature ambition of appearing as an author in form, till he had fully qualified himself, by the long course of reading and meditation, now mentioned, to sustain that character. It was not till the year 1736 that he pub- lished the first of those works, on which his great reputation is raised. This was, “The Alliance betwixt Church and State;” the occasion, and end, and substance of which work cannot be expressed in fewer or clearer terms than his own.
After a shgt historical view of religious parties in England, from the Reformation downwards, of the discordant notions entertained of religious establishments, and of the heats and animosities which those notions had produced, he proceeds thus :—
“In this ferment, and in this embroiled condition, the author of ‘The Alliance between Church and State’ found the sentiments of men concerning religious liberty and establishments, when he pro- posed his theory to their consideration: a theory calculated to vindicate our present happy constitution on A PRINCIPLE OF RIGHT, by adjust- ing the precise bounds of either society ; by showing how they come to act in conjunction ; and by explaining the nature of their union ; and from thence, by natural and necessary consequence, inducing, on the one hand, an ESTABLISHED RELIGION, with all its rights and pri- vileges, secured by a ΤΈΒΤ LAW; and, on the other, a full and free TOLERATION, to all who dissented from the national worship.
*‘He first showed the use of religion to society, from the experience and practice of all ages: he inquired from whence the use arose, and found it to be from certain original defects in the yery essence and plan of civil society. He went on to the nature of religion; and showed how, and for what causes, it constituted a society ; and then, from the natures of the two societies, he collected that the object of the civil is only the body and its interest ; and the object of the reli- gious, only the soul. Hence he concluded, that both societies are sovereign and independent, because they arise not out of one another, and because, as they are concerned in contrary provinces, they can
10 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
never meet to clash; the sameness of original, or the sameness of administration, being the only causes which can bring one, of two dis- tinct societies, into natural subjection to the other.
““ΠῸ apply religion therefore to the service of civil society, in the best manner it is capable of being applied, he showed it was necessary that the two societies should unite: for, each being sovereign and independent, there was no other way of applying the service of reli- gion in any solid or effectual manner. But no such union could arise but from free compact and convention. And free convention is never likely to happen, unless each society has its mutual motives and mutual advantages. The author, therefore, from what he had laid down of the natures of the two societies, explained what these motives and advantages were. Whence it appeared that all the rights, privileges, and prerogatives of the two societies, thus united, with the civil magistrate at their head, were indeed those very rights, privileges, and prerogatives, which we find established and enjoyed under our present happy constitution in church and state. The result of this was, that an ESTABLISHED CHURCH and a free TOLERATION are made perfectly to agree by the medium of a Test Law. ‘This law, therefore, the author in the last place proceeded to vindicate, on the same general principles of the law of nature and nations.
«This is a true, though short, analysis of ‘The Alliance between Church and State.’ ”’ *
This work made a great impression on the best judges. One of them,+ to whom he had sent a present of his book, expresses himself thus :—
“1 had formerly been very agreeably entertained with some emenda- tions of yours on Shakspeare, and was extremely pleased to find this work was by the same hand. Good learning, great acuteness, an ingenious working head, and depth of thought, will always please in an author, though we are not entirely in the same ways of thinking.” And, in the close of it, he adds: ‘ You have not, sir, only my thanks for what you have done, but my sincere wishes, that what was intended for the service of the public may prove also to be for your own, to which my endeavours, in any proper way, shall not be wanting.”
This was candid and generous, considering that the eminegt person was not altogether in the author’s sentiments on the subject of his book. But he was struck with his great abilities, and became from this moment his sincere friend.
The truth is, no sort of men, either within or without the church, was prepared, at that time, for an indifferent reception of this new theory, which respected none of their prejudices. It was neither cal- culated to please the high-church divines, nor the low; and the laity had taken their side with the one or the other of those parties.
* See “ View of Lord Bolingbroke’s Philosophy,” Letter iv. + Bishop Hare.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. Π
However, though few at that time were convinced, all were struck by this essay of an original writer, and could not dissemble their admiration of the ability which appeared in the construction of it. There was indeed a reach of thought in this system of church-policy, which would prevent its making its way all at once. It required time and attention, even in the most capable of its readers, to apprehend the force of the argumentation ; and a more than common share of candour to adopt the conclusion, when they did. The author had, therefore, reason to be satisfied with the reception of his theory, such as it was; and having thoroughly persuaded himself of its truth, as well as importance, he continued to enlarge and improve it in several subsequent editions ; and in the last, by the opportunity which some elaborate attempts of his adversaries to overturn it had afforded him, he exerted his whole strength upon it, and has left it in a condition to brave the utmost efforts of future criticism.*
Some indeed have taken offence at the idea of an alliance, but with- out cause ; for the meaning is this, that our church-establishment is such as in equity it must have been, had the terms of it been settled by mutual agreement between the two parties. Which, in other words, is only saying, that those terms are just and reasonable.
The idea of an alliance was conceived, in preference to any other mode of conducting the argument, because the theory of civil govern- ment had been formed on the like notion of a contract between prince and people. This way of reasoning, therefore, without being less con- clusive, had the advantage of being more popular than any other, and, as such, was very properly adopted by our author.
Notwithstanding this management, ‘“‘ The Alliance,” as I observed, was not generally understood. But he did not wait for the reward of public favour, to encourage him in the resolution he had taken of dedi- cating his great talents to the service of religion. In the close of this first edition of ‘The Alliance,’ he announced his next and greatest work, ‘‘The Divine Legation of Moses ;” which he had now planned, - and in part composed. For when such a writer as this has, by a long course of study, laid in the proper materials for invention to operate upon, and has, by one vigorous essay, assured himself of his own strength, his progress to perfection is rapid and almost instantaneous ; like the pace of Homer’s gods, whose first step reaches to Olympus, and the second to the ends of the earth.
It had been pretended by those who called themselves deists, and,
* An eminent writer has delivered his opinion of it in these terms: ‘‘ Bishop Warbur- ton, in his ‘ Alliance between Church and State,’ hath shown the general good policy of an establishment, and the necessity of a test for its security, upon principles which republicans themselves cannot easily deny.—His work is one of the finest specimens, that are to be found perhaps in any language, of scientific reasoning applied to a political subject.”—Dr. Hors.ey’s ‘* Review of the Case of the Protestant Dissenters.” Preface, London, 1787.
12 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
in the modesty of free-thinking which then prevailed, had, or affected to have, a respect for the natural doctrine of a future state, that the omission of this doctrine in the Mosaic law was a clear, decisive proof of its imposture, as no institute of religion, coming from God, could be without that principle.
The author of “The Alliance”? saw the omission in another light ; and was so far from admitting the deists’ conclusion, that he thought himself able to prove, in the clearest manner, and with the evidence of what is called moral demonstration, the divinity of the Mosaic law from that very circumstance.
Such then was the subject and scope of Mr. Warburton’s μα work, ‘‘The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated on the Principles of a religious Deist.” But in the conduct of this new and paradoxical argument, so many prejudices and objections, both of believers and unbelievers, were to be removed ; and so many collateral lights to be let in upon it ; that the discourse extended itself far and wide, and took in all that was most curious in Gentile, Jewish, and Christian antiquity.
In the beginning of the year 1738, the first volume of this work appeared, and immediately drew all eyes upon it. Some were too weak, and some too much dimmed or distorted by prejudices, to take a full and distinct view of its contents. No wonder then if such readers misconceived of the writer’s purpose, and misrepresented it. Yet few were so blind as not to admire the execution. ‘I hear nobody speak of your book,” says the bishop of Chichester, ‘who do not express themselves highly entertained with it; though they think the principal point which remains to be proved a paradox.” * And what the bishop himself thought of it, before publication, when the sheets were sent to him from the press, he tells the author in these words : “1 can say, without any compliment, that your papers have given me high delight. So many beautiful thoughts, such ingenious illustrations of them, such a clear connexion, such a deduction of notions, and so much good learning upon so useful a subject, all expressed in proper and fine language, cannot but give an intelligent reader the greatest satisfaction.” +
And to much the same purpose another learned friend, the bishop of Salisbury : 1 ‘ Last night I received some sheets of your book, and ran them over with great pleasure, though not with the attention which the subject and your way of treating it demand.” § And in another letter, when he had taken time to consider the contents of this volume: ‘ The learning and ability of the author of ‘The Divine Lega- tion’ are not called in question; and the first part has raised a great desire and expectation of the second.” ||
* MS. Letters, Feb. 21st, 1737-8. + Oct. 18th, 1737. { Dr. Sherlock. § MS. Letters, Oct. 18th, 1737. \| March 2d, 1737-8.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 13
I quote these passages so particularly, because the bishops, Hare and Sherlock, were, without doubt, among the ablest of his judges, and because their temper was far enough from inclining towards an officious and lavish civility to their friends.
After authorities of so much weight, I should not think it worth while to take notice of what was objected to him by ordinary writers, but that he thought fit to answer one of them,* in a style so soft and elegant, that they who have a taste for the gentler polemics will read it with great pleasure.
The real ground of the abuse cast. upon him, though other causes were pretended, was the handsome manner in which he had spoken of Dr. Middleton, in his preface to the first volume. This ingenious man, of whom more will be said as we go along, had written some things which gave occasion to suspect him of a leaning towards infidelity. Mr. Warburton was personally acquainted with him, and had a real esteem for him. He wished, therefore, if possible, to draw his friend off from that bias, which his passions, rather than his judgment, he conceived, had impressed upon him, by putting the fairest constructions on his writings, and by affecting to understand them in the most favourable sense. But instead of clearing his friend, by this means, from the guilt of heterodoxy, the effect was to involve himself in the suspicion of it: and it was thought proper that he should disclaim and repel so groundless an imputation. This it was not difficult for him to do, so far as respected his own character; but that of his friend required managing, and he would not justify himself at his expense.
In these delicate circumstances, he acquitted himself with dexterity, yet with perfect good faith, and to the singular satisfaction of his friends. ‘I received yesterday,” says Bishop Hare, “ your ‘ Vindica- tion,’ which I read twice over with great satisfaction: the part that relates to Dr. Middleton, we think extremely well done. It was the only difficult part ; and it cannot but please every candid reader to see you do justice to yourself, and yet not to do it at his expense, nor say a word that either he or his friends can be offended at, or that is in the least giving up a man with whom you ive in friendship. Here is courage and integrity very agreeably joined.” +
The bishop here gives a very just account of ‘‘ The Vindication,” and indeed of Mr. Warburton’s general conduct towards Dr. Middleton ; as appears from the whole of his intercourse with him, which began in 1736, and was carried on, by a frequent exchange of friendly and affectionate letters, from that time to 1741, when it seems to have ceased, or to have been interrupted at least, for reasons which will be mentioned hereafter.
In the whole course of these letters, which I have in my hands,
* Dr. Webster. See vol. xi, [Edition of 1811.] + March 23d, 1737-8.
14 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
every sort of polite insinuation is employed to soften and remove his prejudices against revealed religion ; by joining with him, sometimes, in his graver complaints of bigoted divines, and, sometimes, in his ridicule of their pretended orthodoxy; but in taking for granted, everywhere, his respect for revelation, and his real belief of it, and in seeming to think that, if other opinions were entertained of him, they had proceeded from an ignorance of his true character.
But the friendliness of his views will best appear from his own words.
He had taken occasion to acquaint Dr. Middleton with the man- ner in which he meant to address the freethinkers, in his dedica- tion to them, prefixed to the first volume of “The Divine Legation,” and with his purpose of making respectful mention of him in it. To this information Dr. Middleton replies, September 22d, 1737: “I am pleased with the manner of your address to the freethinkers, and obliged to you for your friendly intentions with regard to myself; and though I should be as proud to have the testimony of your judgment and good opinion, as of any man, yet I would have you consider how far such a declaration of it may expose you to a share of that envy which has lain, and still lies, very heavy upon me.”
This was handsome on his part, but was not likely to divert his friend from the measures he had taken. Accordingly, in a letter dated December 23d, 1737, after telling him that his book was coming out, and that he had ordered a copy of it to be sent him, he proceeds thus, with a manifest allusion, in the concluding sentence, to Dr. Middleton’s letter: “1 have your pardon to ask for the liberty I have taken of designing you by your character, in one place of the body of the book, as well as in the dedication to the freethinkers, For I would fain con- tribute to abate an wyust prejudice, that might lie in the way of those honours which wait for you, and are so much your due. And I shall reckon it for nothing, in so honest an attempt, to run the risk of sharing that prejudice with you.”
And again, writing to him March 18th, 1737-8, on the subject of his answer to the author of the ““ Weekly Miscellany,” he says, “I am to thank him for the agreeable necessity of vindicating you, by a quo- tation in one of the defences that pass for yours, from his false aecusa- tion of denying the inspiration of scripture ; and from his imagination, which is the ground of this clamour, that you defend revelation, not as true, but only useful; and that, as to other points, you and I can differ without breach of common humanity, friendship, and Christian charity.”
I have put these things together, because I would not interrupt the recital of what concerns the first appearance of those two capital works, “The Alliance” and “Divine Legation,’’ so closely connected with each other, that the former, in the original design, was but a
THE LIFE OF THE ΑΥΤΗΟΕ.. 15
chapter of the latter; the reception they met with from the public; and the occasion they gave him of justifying an obnoxious friend, as well as explaining his own sentiments,
I must now go back a little, to mention a circumstance in his life, which does the parties concerned too much honour to be omitted by me, and which happened in the latter end of the year 1737, ‘The Alliance”? had now made the author much talked of at court; and the bishop of Chichester, on whom that work had impressed, as we have seen, the highest ideas of his merit, was willing to take that favourable opportunity of introducing him to the queen. Her majesty, it is well known, took a pleasure in the discourse of men of learning and genius; and chancing one day to ask the bishop, if he could recommend a person of that description to be about her, and to entertain her some- times with his conversation, the bishop said he could, and mentioned the author of ‘The Alliance between Church and State.”” The recom- mendation was graciously received, and the matter put in so good a train, that the bishop expected every day the conclusion of it, when the ‘queen was seized with a sudden illness, which put an end to her life the 20th of November, 1737.
I find this transaction alluded to in a letter from the bishop, dated November 11th, that is, nine days before that unhappy event. His lordship thanks Mr. Warburton for some sheets of the first volume of the “‘ Legation,’ which were just then sent him from the press, and after making some remarks upon them, takes notice of a stroke of pleasantry, which, it seems, had escaped him, on Mr. Wollaston’s famous book on “f The Religion of Nature,” and which he advises him to strike out, ‘‘as it would give great offence to the admirers of that book, I have besides,” continues his lordship, ‘fa particular reason for advising you to alter that passage, which you shall know at a proper time.”
And, afterwards, in the same letter: “1 would advise, not only the cancelling that leaf, but the doing it immediately, that it may not get into many hands. When I see you, I am persuaded, you will allow this is right advice from a friend.”
The secret was, that he was then endeavouring to serve his friend with the queen, and was apprehensive that the freedom he had taken with that work, which she much admired, might hurt him in her majesty’s opinion, and defeat his design.
This disappointment, when he came to know it, did not abate his ardour in prosecuting his studies at Brand-Broughton, After publish- ing the ““ Vindication,” before mentioned, early in the year 1738, he applied himself with great industry to compose the second volume of his work, notwithstanding the clamours which had been raised, and
now grew louder, against the first. ‘‘I go steadily on,” says he, in a
10 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
letter to Dr. Middleton, November 12th, 1738, “amidst much ill treat- ment. If you ask, what is it that supports me, I will tell you, my excellent friend: it is the love of truth, and a clear conviction of the reality of the Jewish and Christian revelations.’”*
Animated with these principles, he went on with his great design, and seems to have spent the two or three succeeding years upon it. Only, in 1739, he drew up and published a short defence of Mr. Pope’s ** Essay on Man,” against M. de Crousaz, who had written a book to show that it was constructed on the principles of Spinosa, and con- tained a dangerous system of irreligion. But though this was a slight thing, and took up little of his time, yet, as it respected so eminent a person, and had great consequences with regard to himself, it will be proper to enlarge upon it.
It has been objected to Mr. Warburton, that, in his earlier days, he had himself entertained a prejudice against Mr. Pope, and had even expressed it in very strong terms. The offence taken had probably been occasioned by a severe reflection, in one of his satires, on Mr. Warburton’s friend and patron, Sir Robert Sutton; and, in that case, it is likely that he might express himself of the poet with too much warmth ; for I will not conceal or disguise the infirmity of my friend. When his moral feelings were touched, he was apt to be transported into some intemperance of expression, and was not always guarded, or even just, in his censures or commendations. But a mind, naturally great, does not long retain this fervour, and, when cooled by reflection, isin haste to make amends for its former excesses. It is impossible indeed that, under any provocation, he should be blind to so much merit as our great poet possessed ; and what he saw of this sort in any man, he was not backward to declare to others. In his ““ Vindica- tion” of himself, last year, he had shown how much he admired Mr. Pope, by quoting a fine passage from him, and applying it to himself in a way, that showed an esteem of his morals, as well as poetry. Since that time, he had suffered so much abuse himself from angry zealots, and felt so strongly, in his own case, what it was for a well- meaning man to have his religious sentiments misrepresented, that this attack of M. de Crousaz would naturally find him in a disposition to resent it.
Add to all this, that he saw with concern the ill use which some were ready to make of the supposed fatalism of Mr. Pope, and how hurtful it was to religion to have it imagined that so great a genius was ill inclined towards it.
These reasons, working together, seem to have determined him to take the part of the injured poet ; as indeed he explains the matter himself in a letter of July 16th, 1739, to Dr. Middleton :—* A certain great man is very angry with me for speaking of you in the manner I did.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 17
I make no question but another sort of those they call ‘great men’ will hold themselves outraged by mein my vindication of Mr. Pope, against M. de Crousaz, in some letters which are going to be collected together and published. But I cannot forbear showing my esteem of merit, and my contempt of their calumniators, or thinking that it is of use to religion to prove so noble a genius is a friend to it.”
These letters were much read,* and gave a new lustre to Mr. War- burton’s reputation. They showed the elegance of his taste in polite literature, as well as his penetration into moral subjects. Mr. Pope was supremely struck with them,}+ and might now exult, as his prede- cessor Boileau had done, when he cried out in the face of his enemies, —
** Arnauld, le grand Arnauld, fait mon apologie.”
From this time there was an intimate acquaintance formed between the poet and his commentator. The effects of this union will be taken notice of presently. I now only add, that it was strongly cemented by a mutual profession of esteem, and a constant interchange of letters.
Among these I find one which Mr. Warburton addressed to his friend, in vindication of Sir Robert Sutton; written, as appears, with the view of prevailing with him to strike that gentleman’s name out of his satires. As it sets the author in an amiable light, and seems to confirm my conjecture that his former dissatisfaction with Mr. Pope had arisen from this circumstance, I shall give it in the Appendix A.
Towards the end of this year, 1739, he published a new and improved edition of the first volume of the “Divine Legation,” and sent it to his friend bishop Hare ; who, in a kind letter, of December Ist, 1739, returns his thanks for it, and adds, ‘I hope not only pos- terity, but the present age, will do justice to so much merit ; and do assure you, it shall not be my fault if it do ποί. Which I mention, to show that the envy which was then rising very fast against the author of the “ Divine Legation,” and which was supposed to have the countenance of some considerable churchmen, had made no alteration in the sentiments of that great prelate, or lessened his esteem of him. Indeed on all occasions he expressed his regard for Mr. Warburton in the friendliest manner, of which the following instance must not be omitted.
Sir Thomas Hanmer, who was a man of business, and had been speaker of the House of Commons in queen Anne’s time, grew ambi- tious, in the latter part of his life, to be taken notice of as a critic on Shakspeare. He had seen some notes on his favourite poet by Mr. Warburton in Mr. Theobald’s edition: and as he was now preparing one of his own, which he afterwards printed at the Clarendon press, he
* See vol. xi [Edition of 1811.] + See his Letter in his Works, April 11th, 1739. VOL. I. Cc \
18 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
very justly conceived that the assistance of Mr. Theobald’s coadjutor might be of service to him in the execution of that project.
With this view he got himself introduced to Mr. Warburton by the bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Sherlock, and managed so well as to draw from his new acquaintance a large collection of notes and emendations, which were, in confidence, communicated to him in a series of private letters.
What followed upon this, and what use he made of those friendly communications, I need not repeat, as the account is given by Mr. Warburton himself in the lively preface to his and Mr. Pope’s edition of Shakspeare, of which something more will be said in its place. It is enough to say here, that he very reasonably resented this usage, and complained of it to his two friends, the bishops of Salisbury and Chi- chester. The former expresses his concern at this ill treatment, and the more so, he says, “‘as he had in some measure been the occasion of it;” that is, by bringing Mr. Warburton and Sir Thomas Hanmer together.
The latter tells him, in a letter of May Sth, 1739, “Sir Thomas Hanmer’s proceeding with respect to Shakspeare is very extraordinary. —I think you do very well to get your own papers out of his hands : it is pity they have been so long in them, since it is probable he has squeezed what he could out of them; which is most ungenerous treat- ment.’ He concludes with saying, “1 hope you will find leisure to give the world a Shakspeare yourself, which the sooner it is made known the better.”
And thus ended this trifling affair, which I should scarcely have mentioned but to do justice to the friendly temper of Bishop Hare, who interested himself so kindly in all his concerns ; and to show that Mr. Warburton’s conduct was not directed by caprice or petulance, but was that of a man of sense and honour, and as such was approved by his most judicious friends.
Mr. Warburton was so taken up with his studies, and found so much delight in them, that he rarely stirred from home: which, he would often say, there was no good reason for doing, except necessary business, and the satisfaction of seeing a friend. What the world calls amusement from a change of the scene, passed for nothing with him, who was too well employed to be tired of his situation, or to have a thought of running away from himself; which, after all, they who are incessantly making the experiment, find impossible to be done. Yet he sometimes found himself obliged to go to London; as he did in the spring of the year 1740 ; and he took that opportunity of making his first visit to Mr. Pope, of which he immediately * gave Dr. Middle- ton the following account :—
“1 passed about a week at Twickenham in the most agreeable man-
* May Gth, 1740.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 19
ner. Mr. Pope is as good a companion as a poet ; and, what is more, appears to be as good a man.”
The last was indeed the consideration, that so much endeared Mr. Pope to him. He found him an honest and well-principled man ; zeal- ous to promote the interests of virtue, and impressed with an awful sense of religion, natural and revealed. In short, he found an image of himself in his new acquaintance : no wonder, then, their esteem and affection grew so fast as to give umbrage, in no long time, to a certain nobleman, who had taken to himself the honour of being the guide and philosopher of Mr. Pope. |
The acquisition of this new friend came very seasonably to support Mr. Warburton under the loss of another, the excellent Bishop Hare, who died, after a short illness, the 6th of April this year.
How he felt that loss, the public has been informed by himself in the preface to the second volume of the “Divine Legation,” and with a flow of sentiment and expression which only the truest friendship, operating on a mind like his, could inspire. But we are better pleased to hear him express his sense of it in a private letter to a friend. Speaking of the bishop’s death to Dr. Middleton, in the letter above- mentioned of May 6th, 1740, he says, ‘‘ He has not left his fellow behind him for the love and encouragement of learning. I have had a great loss in his death. He honoured me with his esteem and friendship. This I esteemed a great obligation. I never sought to increase it by any other dependence upon him; and by the terms on which we kept up a correspondence, he did me the justice to believe, I expected no other.”
This freedom of correspondence does honour to both parties; and was observed, with address, in this letter to Dr. Middleton, who had conceived Bishop Hare to have taken a prejudice against himself, for his liberty in professing some sentiments, not conformable to his lord- ship’s. He therefore insinuates there was no ground for such a suspi- cion ; for that he himself, so much and so long in the bishop’s favour, had lived with him on the same free terms. He knew very well, that nothing could recommend his patron or himself to his friend’s good opinion, more than such liberality on the one part, and so manly a conduct on the other.
But the truth is, though Mr. Warburton very properly sought not to increase his obligation to Bishop Hare, he would certainly have received the highest, had it been in the bishop’s power; which very probably ended with the queen’s death.
In May, 1741, was published the second volume of the “ Divine Legation,” which completed the argument, although not the entire plan, of that work: a work, in all views, of the most transcendant merit, whether we consider the invention, or the execution.
coz
%
20 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.-
A plain simple argument, yet perfectly new, proving the divinity of the Mosaic law, and laying a sure foundation for the support of Chris- tianity, is there drawn out to a great length by a chain of reasoning, so elegantly connected, that the reader is carried along it with ease and pleasure; while the matter presented to him is so striking for its own importance, so embellished by a lively fancy, and illustrated, from all quarters, by exquisite learning and the most ingenious disquisition, that, in the whole compass of modern or ancient theology, there is nothing equal or similar to this extraordinary performance.
Such is the general idea of the ‘‘ Divine Legation of Moses.” But for a more distinct conception of its frame; to see at once
‘¢ the bearings and the ties, The strong connexions, just dependencies ;”’
the reader is referred to the recapitulation at the end of the sixth book, where the author himself has drawn up a brief comprehensive view of his whole scheme, with great spirit.
This year, but something earlier, came out Dr. Middleton’s famous ““ History of the Life: of ‘Cicero ;’’ which was received by the public, as it deserved to be, with great applause. Mr. Warburton took the first occasion to compliment his friend upon it : and, as in the conclud- ing part of that work Dr. Middleton had controverted the account given of Cicero’s philosophical opinions in the first volume of the ‘‘Divine Legation,’ he takes notice, that ‘‘he had a more particular pleasure in the last section, as he was more particularly interested in it ;”’ and then proceeds to moralize in the following manner : ‘‘ We perhaps shall neither of us be esteemed orthodox writers. But this we shall do, we shall give an example to the world, which orthodox writers rarely do, and perhaps of more use to mankind than most of the refined subjects they engage in, that we can differ in many important points, and pub- licly avow our difference, without the least interruption of the declared friendship and esteem we bear to each other. And the ‘Life of Tully,’ and the ‘ Divine Legation’ will be a rule, which few have set us, and perhaps few will follow, how men, who esteem and love each other, should comport themselves when they differ in opinion. So that whichever is right or wrong in opinion, the honest part of the world will judge both of us to be right in sentiment.” *
To whom Dr. Middleton replies, with great complacency, in the same strain: ‘As to the circumstance, from which you draw so just and useful a lesson, of our differing from each other in some particu- lar opinions, as I was always persuaded that it could not have any other effect upon you, so I have the comfort to assure you, that I never felt the least impression from it disadvantageous to our friendship. It is the necessary consequence of that privilege of our nature on which
* April 29th, 1741.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 9]
all men of sense set the highest value, the liberty of judging for our- selves ; yet since it would be a great satisfaction to me in all cases to find my judgment confirmed by yours, so, when you are at full leisure, I should be glad to know the particular reasons which force you to differ from me on the subject of Cicero’s opinions ; to which alone our difference in the present case is to be referred, that as far as is possi- ble we may come still nearer to each other.” *
Thus these two ingenious men ; and the same spirit breathes through the rest of their letters: so that their whole temper seems to have resolved itself into a principle of general candour. Yet within a month or two, a fresh difference of opinion taking place, (though on a subject of no more importance than the other about Cicero, respecting only the origin of popish ceremonies,) and neither side giving way, our two candid friends cooled insensibly towards each other, and seem, thence- forward, to have discontinued their correspondence ; for I find no let- ters that passed between them, of a later date than those of this year, which touch upon that difference. A memorable instance of our com- mon weakness ! which shows how little stress is to be laid on those professions of candour, with which our letters and conversations over- flow ; and how impossible it is for any lasting friendship to subsist between men of opposite principles and persuasions, however their feelings may for a time be dissembled, or disguised even to themselves, by a show of good breeding.
For a contrary reason,—the conformity of their sentiments, the friendship between Mr. Warburton and Mr. Pope became every day closer and more confidential. In the beginning of this summer, when the business that had called him to London, on the publication of his book, was over, he went down again to Twickenham, and passed some weeks with Mr. Pope there and in a country ramble, which led them at last to Oxford. The university was naturally pleased at the arrival of two such strangers, and seemed desirous of enrolling their names among their graduates. The degree of doctor of divinity was intended for the divine, and that of doctor of law for the poet, as a testimony of their great respect for each. But intrigue and envy defeated this scheme ; and the university lost the opportunity of decorating with its honours the two greatest geniuses of the age, by the fault of one or two of its members.+ Mr. Pope retired with some chagrin to Twickenham, but consoled himself and his friend with this sarcastic reflection : “‘ We shall take our degree together in fame, whatever we do at the uni- versity.” ὦ
The time they spent together this summer gave occasion to some
* Cambridge, April 5th, 1741. I suppose, a misdate for May 5th, or Mr. Warbur-
ton’s letter is misdated. + Pope’s ““ Works,” vol. ix. London, 1753. Letter 107. t Sept. 20th, 1741.
22 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
interesting conversations. Mr. Warburton suggested many alterations and improvements of Mr. Pope’s moral writings, and particularly advised him to strike out “every thing in them that might be suspected of having the least glance towards fate or naturalism ;”” which he con- sented to, we are told, “‘ with extreme pleasure.” * It was also at this time that he concerted with him the plan of the fourth book of the ** Dunciad.” + : .
Mr. Pope lost no time in carrying it into execution. In November following he presses his friend to meet him at Prior Park, on the invi- tation of Mr. Allen, with whom he then was, and tells him it was there that he should find most leisure to profit by the advice he had given him “to resume the studies, which he had almost laid aside by perpetual avocations and dissipations.”
Here accordingly they met: a great part of the new poem was read and highly approved: the rest was finished in the course of the year 1742, and a project formed for making Mr. Warburton the editor of the four books complete; which was executed very early in 1743, and so much to the author’s satisfaction, that he afterwards engaged him to sustain the like office with regard to the rest of his works. t
I shall find a fitter place, in the course of these reflections, to speak my own sentiments of the edition of Mr. Pope’s works. All I have now to add on this interesting part of Mr. Warburton’s life, is, that the most unreserved confidence continued between the two friends till Mr. Pope’s death, in May, 1744; and with what warmth of affection on both sides, appears from the last will and testament of the latter, and from the zeal of the former to fulfil his intention, and to do all possible honour to his memory.
It must indeed be regretted that this memorable friendship com- menced so late and ended so soon. We might otherwise have seen the most valuable fruits of it. Their hearts and heads were exactly attuned to each other; and, had the life and health of Mr. Pope per- mitted, this harmonious agreement in the powers and purposes of two such men, could not have failed to produce many a noble design in favour of virtue and religion.
The death of our great poet was an event that could not fail of put- ting the spirits of the ingenious in motion, and of exciting an emula- tion, among the lovers of polite literature, to adorn his memory and virtues. It accordingly produced Mr. Brown’s “ Essay on Satire,” which was addressed to Mr. Warburton, and so far approved by him, as to be prefixed to his edition of Mr. Pope’s works. It also brought on the dawn of Mr. Mason’s genius, in “The Monody,” entitled
* Preface to his ‘* Works.” t+ Pore’s ““ Works,” vol. ix. Letter 110, 1 Letters 112—115.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 23
“« Muszeus ;”? which gave so sure a presage of his future eminence in poetry, and so advantageous a picture of his mind, that Mr. Warbur- ton, on the sight of it,
‘¢ With open arms received one poet more.”
Soon after Mr. Pope’s death, Mr. Warburton received a letter from a learned and ingenious lady, Mrs. Cockburn, lamenting that event, and making some inquiry after Mr. Pope’s works; but the real pur- pose of the letter-writer was to draw Mr. Warburton into an explana- tion of his system concerning moral obligation, as delivered in the first volume of the “ Divine Legation,” it being different from one espoused by herself, which was that of Dr. Samuel Clarke.
His answer to this lady is written with great civility and politeness, and was so well received, that when, a year or two afterwards, she drew up her confutation of Dr. Rutherforth’s “‘ Essay on Virtue,” she sent the manuscript to Mr. Warburton; who was extremely pleased with it, and wrote a short preface in recommendation of that work. His letter may be seen in the Appendix B.
But to return to what I was saying of Mr. Pope’s friendship for Mr. Warburton.
Next to the enjoyment itself of such a friendship, the chief benefit Mr. Warburton derived from it, was the being introduced by his means to his principal friends ; particularly Mr. Murray and Mr. Allen, two of the greatest and best men of the age. As I had myself the honour of being well acquainted with these excellent persons, and very much obliged to them, I may the rather be allowed to indulge myself in the recollection of their virtues. 5
Mr. Murray, afterwards earl of Mansfield, and lord chief justice of England, was so extraordinary a person, and made so great a figure in the world, that his name must go down to posterity with distinguished honour, in the public records of the nation. For his shining talents displayed themselves in every department of the state, as well as in the supreme court of justice, his peculiar province ; which he filled with a lustre of reputation, not equalled perhaps, certainly not exceeded, by that of any of his predecessors.
Of his conduct in the House of Lords I can speak with the more confidence, because I speak from my own observation. Too good to be the leader, and too able to be the dupe, of any party, he was _ believed to speak his own sense of public measures; and the authority of his judgment was so high, that, in regular times, the House was usually determined by it. He was no forward or frequent speaker ; but reserved himself, as was fit, for occasions worthy of him. In debate, he was eloquent as well as wise ; or rather, he became eloquent by his wisdom. His countenance and tone of voice imprinted the
οΑ THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
ideas of penetration, probity, and candour; but what secured your attention and assent to all he said, was his constant good sense, flow- ing in apt terms and the clearest method. He affected no sallies of the imagination, or bursts of passion; much less would he condescend to personal abuse or petulant altercation. All was clear, candid rea- son, letting itself so easily into the minds of his hearers as to carry information and conviction with it. In a word, his public senatorial character resembled very much that of Messala, of whom Cicero says, addressing himself to Brutus :—
«Do not imagine, Brutus, that, for worth, honour, and a warm love of his country, any one is comparable to Messala : so that his eloquence, in which he wonderfully excels, is almost eclipsed by those virtues. And eyen in his display of that faculty, his superior good sense shows itself most: with so much care and skill hath he formed himself to the truest manner of speaking! His powers of genius and invention are confessedly of the first size ; yet he almost owes less to them than to the diligent and studious cultivation of his judgment.” *
In the commerce of private life, he was easy, friendly, and agreeable ; extremely sensible of merit in other men, and ready on all occasions to countenance and produce it. From his early youth, he had attracted the notice, and obtained the friendship and applause, of our great poet.
Mr. Allen was a man of plain good sense, and the most benevolent temper. He rose to great consideration by farming the cross-posts, which he put into the admirable order in which we now find them, very much to the public advantage, as well as his own. He was of that generous composition, that his mind enlarged with his fortune ; and the wealth he so honourably acquired, he spent in’a splendid hos- pitality and the most extensive charities. His house, in so public a scene as that of Bath, was open to all men of rank and worth, and especially to men of distinguished parts and learning; whom he honoured and encouraged ; and whose respective merits he was enabled to appreciate, by a natural discernment and superior good sense, rather than any acquired use and knowledge of letters. His domestic virtues were above all praise. With these qualities he drew to himself an uni- versal respect ; and possessed, in a high degree, the esteem of Mr. Pope, who, in one of his moral essays, has done justice to his modest and amiable character.
To these two incomparable persons Mr. Pope was especially anx-
* “Cave putes. probitate, constantia, cura, studio reipublicee, quidquam illi simile esse ; ut eloquentia, qua mirabiliter excellit, vix in eo locum ad laudandum habere videatur. Quanquam in hac ipsa sapientie plus apparet: ita gravi judicio multique arte se exercuit in verissimo _genere dicendi. Tanta autem industria est, tantumque evigilat in studio, ut non maximé ingenio, quod in eo summum est, gratia habenda videatur.”—CicERO dd Brutum, lib. i. epist. 16.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 25
ious to introduce his friend ; and it was not long before he experienced the most substantial benefits from this recommendation.
In the mean time his attention was turned towards that numerous host of answerers, which the ‘ Divine Legation of Moses” had brought down upon him. The extensive argument and miscellaneous nature of that work had led him to declare his sentiments on a multitude of questions, on which he thought differently from other writers, and of course to censure or confute their opinions. Whole bodies of men, as well as individuals of the highest reputation, were attacked by him ; and his manner was to speak his sense of all with freedom and force : so that most writers, and even readers, had some ground of complaint against him. Not only the freethinkers and unbelievers, against whom the tenor of his book was directed, but the heterodox of every deno- mination were treated without much ceremony ; and of those, reputed orthodox, some tenet or other, which till then they had held sacred, was discussed and reprobated by him. Straggling heresies, or embo- died systems, made no difference with him; as they came in his way, no quarter was given to either; “his end and manner of writing,” as Dr. Middleton truly observed, ‘‘ being to pursue truth, wherever he found it, and, from the midst of smoke and darkness, to spread light and day around him.” *
Such a writer, independently of the envy which ever attends supe- rior genius, must needs have innumerable enemies. And as all could not receive, nor the greater part deserve, his notice, he determined to select a few of the more respectable, out of the gross body of assail- ants, and to quit his hands of them at once, in a general comprehen- sive answer. This was done by ‘“ Remarks on several occasional Reflec- tions,” in two parts; the former published in 1744, and the second (which he styles the last) in 1745; and both executed in such a man- ner as was not likely to invite any fresh attacks upon him.+
Yet the rage of his answerers was not presently subdued. Writing to a confidential friend from Prior Park the year following, July 15th, 1746, he tells him: “1 have a deluge of writers against me. But two great-men have made me promise to answer none of them. They said, ‘You imagine the world takes as much notice of your answerers, as you yourself do. You are mistaken. The names of none of them were ever heard of in good company. And the world wonders you should so misemploy your time.’ To this I said, ‘It was true. But that there was another body to which some regard should be had,—the inferior clergy.’ They said, if such writers misled them, it was in vain for me to think of them. And indeed I begin to think Aristotle mis- taken when he defined man to be arational animal. Not but I know,
* Letter 7 in DR. MIDDLETON’s ‘* Works,”’ vol. ii. + See vol. xi. [Edition of 1811.
20 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
the source of all this opposition is rather to be attributed to a bad heart, than a bad head. And you would be surprised at the instances of envy I could give you. Had I the complaisance to die to-morrow, it would all be over before the end of the week. I am in this condition of a dead man already, with regard to the Indies, there being, at this immense distance, no room for envy, as you will see by the following extract of a letter 1 received from one of the governors of Virginia :—
«¢T never had so much profit from any book, except the Bible, as from yours. The flood of infidelity has reached us. The blessing of God upon your excellent pen will, I hope, preserve us from the evil influence. Pennsylvania seems to be overrun with deism. The Quakers are generally infected ; and it being their constitution to have no established religion, their too universal toleration receives all with- out distinction. And they who worship God, and they who do not, are in the same esteem.
“* Your first and second volumes of the Divine Legation came over to their public library. I recommended it strongly. It soon became the subject of all conversation. Never were such struggles about any book, who should first read it. The reasonable were con- vinced ; the obstinate were astonished. A friend of mine, of learning and station there, spoke of it with the warmest praise : he said, it had made him ten times more a Christian than he had ever been.’ ”
These reflections were consolatory to him, and made him bear with more temper the petulance of his adversaries ; whom he seems to have neglected, till one of high fame and confident pretensions forced him again into the field of controversy. But this was not till some years afterwards. I now go on with my narrative from 1745.
Mr. Pope had very early introduced his friend to the notice of Lord Chesterfield ; who, going this year lord lieutenant to Ireland, was desir- ous of taking Mr. Warburton with him, as his first chaplain. He had his reasons for declining this offer; but he had a proper sense of the civility, and made his public acknowledgments for it im a dedication of the ‘ Alliance,” reprinted with many corrections and improvements, in 1748. The style of compliment in this piece will perhaps be censured as too high. But the truth is, that specious nobleman had the fortune to be better thought of in his lifetime, than he has been since. The general opinion therefore, which came confirmed to him by Mr. Pope, very naturally inflamed the expression of his gratitude, in that panegy- rical epistle.
After an acquaintance of some years, Mr. Allen had now seen so much of his friend, that he wished to unite him still more closely to himself by an alliance of marriage with an accomplished lady of his own family.*
* Miss Gertrude Tucker, Mr. Allen’s favourite niece.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. Q7
This event took place in the beginning of the year 1746 ; and soon after, the preachership of Lincoln’s Inn happening to become vacant, Mr. Murray, then solicitor-general, easily prevailed with the learned bench to invite so eminent a person as Mr. Warburton to accept that office.
II.
From the time of his marriage, Mr. Warburton resided chiefly at Prior Park. In so agreeable, or rather splendid, a retreat, he enjoyed health, affluence, and leisure; the best company, when he chose to partake of it; and every other accommodation, which could be accept- able toa man of letters. His ambition was also gratified with the high- est personal reputation; and in due time he succeeded to the chief honours of his profession. All this he could not but be sensible of. Yet I have heard him say, that the most delicious season of his life was that which he had spent at Newark and Brand-Broughton. So delightful are the springing hopes of youth! and so enchanting the scenes which open toa great genius, when he comes first to know himself, and to make trial of his powers! The impression these left upon him, is very agreeably described in a letter to Mr. C. Yorke, so late as the year 1758. Mr. Yorke had acquainted him with an excur- sion he had been making into Nottinghamshire. In his answer from Prior Park, October 2nd, 1758, he says, ““1 am glad to understand you have amused yourself agreeably with a ramble into Nottinghamshire. It would have been the greatest pleasure to have chopped upon you at Newark ; and I would have done so on the least intimation. I could have led you through delicious walks, and picked off, for your amuse- ment in our rambles, a thousand notions which I hung upon every thorn, as I passed thirty years ago.”
But to return from this reflection :—
The preachership of Lincoln’s Inn had been offered him in so hand- some a manner, that it could not be refused. Otherwise, the thing was not agreeable to him.
Ina letter to Dr. Taylor,* from Prior Park, May 22nd, 1746, he says, “1 think I told you in my last, that the society of Lincoln’s Inn had made me an unanimous offer of the preachership ; which therefore I could not refuse, though I would gladly have done it ; for it will require five or six months’ attendance. And the advantage of the thing itself you may judge of, by this: Mr. Allen would have me take a house, for which I pay as much rent as the whole preachership is worth. This only to you. And do not think I speak with any affectation when I tell you in your ear, that nothing can be more disagreeable to me than this way of life. But I hope and determine that it shall not continue
* The physician, first of Newark, afterwards of London, very eminent in his profession, and from his early youth a friend of Mr. Warburton’s,
28 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
long. Do not you pity me? I shall be forced to write sermons: and God knows what will become of the ‘ Divine Legation.’ But 161 can do any good in this new station, I shall know how to bear the dis- agreements of it, and that is all. How capricious is the fate of mortals! Any other clergyman would think himself happy in such an honour as the society has done me. I believe it is the first * that has been done to their preacher. Yet I have no joy in it.” 4
The truth is, the attendance on the term broke in upon his leisure ; and, what was worse, the necessity he was under of composing sermons, with which he was but slenderly provided, diverted him from other things, for which he judged himself better qualified, and which he had more at heart.
The fruits of his industry in this new office, there will be occasion to speak of and to appreciate hereafter. For the present, it is true, his greater designs received some interruption, and particularly, as he intimates, that of the “ Divine Legation;” although other reasons concurred to make him defer (indeed much too long) the prosecution of that noble work. :
In the year 1747 appeared his edition of Shakspeare’s works, which he had undertaken at the instance of Mr. Pope. ‘‘ He was desirous” — the editor speaks in his own person—‘I should give a new edition of this poet ; and that his edition should be melted down into mine. In memory of our friendship, I have therefore made it our joint edi- tion.” +
As the public envy was now at its height, from the rising fortune, as well as fame, of the author, this edition awakened a spirit of criti- cism, which haunted him in every shape of dull ridicule, and solemn confutation. Happening to speak of this, in a letter written to him, 1749, (for by that time I had the honour of being personally acquainted with him,) he replies to me in the following lively manner : “1 have, as you say, raised a spirit without designing it. And, while I thought I was only conjecturing, it seems I was conjuring. So that I had no sooner evoked the name of Shakspeare from the rotten monu- ment of his former editions, than a crew of strange devils, and more grotesque than any he laughs at in the old farces, came chattering, mewing, and grinning round about me.” ἢ
The outcry against him was, indeed, pretty much what is here so plea- santly described. His illustrations of the poet’s sense were frequently not taken ; and his corrections of the faulty text not allowed. And, to speak candidly, it could scarce be otherwise. For, though all pretend to be judges of poetry, few have any idea of poetical criticism. And, as to what concerns the emendation of the text, the abler the critic,
* He means, by the unanimous offer of their preachership. + Preface to Shak- speare. t Prior-Park, Sept. 28th, 1749.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 29
the more liable he is to some extravagance of conjecture, as we see in the case of Bentley himself, it being dulness, and not judgment, that best secures him from this sort of imputation.*
For the rest, such is the felicity of his genius in restoring number- less passages to their integrity, and in explaining others which the author’s sublime conceptions, or his licentious expression, had kept out of sight, that this fine edition of Shakspeare must ever be highly valued by men of sense and taste; a spirit, congenial to that of the author, breathing throughout, and easily atoning, with such, for the little mistakes and inadvertencies discoverable in it.
Mr. Warburton very properly neglected all attacks on his own criti- cal fame. But of one, that was made soon after on the moral charac- ter of his friend, he took more notice. In 1749 an insignificant pam- phlet, under the name of “A Patriot King,” was published by Lord Bolingbroke, or by his direction, with a preface to it, reflecting highly on Mr. Pope’s honour. The provocation was simply this: The manu- script of that trivial declamation had been intrusted to the care of Mr. Pope, with the charge, as it was pretended, that only a certain number of copies should be printed. Mr. Pope, in his excessive admiration of his lordship, which was the chief foible of his character, took that opportunity, for fear so invaluable a treasure of patriot eloquence should be lost to the public, to exceed his commission, and to run off more copies, which were found, after his death, in the printer’s ware- house ; but with so little secrecy that several of his friends, and in particular Mr. Allen, as he told me, was apprized of it at the time, and by Mr. Pope himself. This charge, however frivolous, was aggra- vated beyond measure ; and, notwithstanding the proofs Lord Boling- broke had received of Mr. Pope’s devotion to him, envenomed with the utmost malignity. Mr. Warburton thought it became him to vin- dicate his deceased friend; and he did it so effectually, as not only to silence his accuser, but to cover him with confusion.
And here let me have leave to pause a little, while, in emulation of this generous conduct of my friend towards one great man, I endea-
* The apology, which an eminent French writer makes for Joseph Scaliger, may serve for all commentators of his size :—
“<Je nescay si on ne pourroit pas dire que Scaliger avoit trop d’esprit, et trop de science, pour faire un bon commentaire; car ἃ force d’avoir de l’esprit, il trouvoit dans les auteurs qu'il commentoit, plus de finesse et plus de génie, qwils n’en avoient effective- ment: et sa profonde litérature étoit cause qu’il voyoit mille rapports entre les pensées d'un auteur, et quelque point rare d’antiquité. De sorte qu’il s’imaginoit que son auteur avoit fait quelque allusion a ce point d’antiquité, et sur ce piedsla il corrigeoit un pas- sage. Si on n’aime mieux s’imaginer que l’envie d’éclaircir un mystére d’éradition inconnu aux autres critiques, ’engageoit 4 supposer qu'il se trouvoit dans un tel ou tel passage. Quoiqu’il en soit, les commentaires qui viennent de Iui, sont pleins de con- jectures hardies, ingénieuses, et fort scavantes, mais il n’est guéres apparent que les auteurs ayent songé a tout ce qu'il leur fait dire. On-s’éloigne de leur sens aussi bien quand on a beaucoup d’esprit, que quand on n’en a pas,” &e.—Nowvelles de la Répub- ligue des Letires, Juin, 1684.
30 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
vour to perform the same office towards another ; the most amiable of his time, who has suffered, in the public opinion, by a charge of immoral meanness brought against him by Mr. Pope himself, and, as I am persuaded, without the least foundation. The person I mean is Mr. Addison, in whose good name, as in that of Mr. Pope, virtue her- self has an interest. He and Mr. Pope were likewise friends ; and this relation between them brings the two cases into a still nearer resemblance with each other.
The charge I allude to is briefly this: Mr. Addison had uniformly* advised and encouraged Mr. Pope’s translation of the Iliad, from the year 1713, when the design of that work was first communicated to him. He had even been zealous to promote the subscription to it ; and in May, 1716, when a considerable progress had been made in the translation, and some parts of it published, he speaks of it in the “« Freeholder,’’ No. 40, in the following manner :—
«« When I consider myself as a British freeholder, I am in a particu- lar manner pleased with the labours of those who have improved our language with the translation of old Latin and Greek authors, and by that means let us into the knowledge of what passed in the famous governments of Greece and Rome. We have already most of their historians in our own tongue: and, what is still more for the honour of our language, it has been taught to express with elegance the greatest of their poets in each nation. The illiterate among our countrymen may learn to judge from Dryden’s Virgil, of the most perfect epic performance; and those parts of Homer which have already been published by Mr. Pope, give us reason to think the Thad will appear in English with as little disadvantage to that immortal poem.”
Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Pope believed, and his friends, as was natural, believed with him, that in 1715 Mr. Addison either translated himself, or employed Mr. Tickell to translate, the first book of the Iliad in opposition to him.
If we ask on what grounds this extraordinary charge is brought against such a man as Mr. Addison, we are only told of someslight and vague suspicions, without any thing that looks like a proof, either external or internal. What there is of the latter tends to confute the charge. For whoever is acquainted with Mr, Addison’s style and man- ner, must be certain that the translation was not his own, though Steele, ina peevish letter written against Tickell,+ has, it seems, insinuated some such thing. And for external proof, we have absolutely nothing but a report from hearsay evidence, that Mr. Addison had expressed himself civilly of Tickell’s performance ; whence it is concluded that
*See letters to and from Mr. Addison, in Mr. Pope's ‘* Works.” + Dedication of the Drummer to Mr. Congreve.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 3L
this translation was, at least, undertaken by Mr. Addison’s advice and authority, if not made by himself.
Still, it will be owned, that so generous a man as Mr. Pope must believe he had some proof of this charge against his friend; and I think I have at length discovered what it was.
I have seen a printed copy of Tickell’s translation,* in which are entered many criticisms and remarks in Mr. Pope’s own hand. And from two of these, compared together, [ seem to collect the true ‘ground of the suspicion. But the reader shall judge for himself.
To the translation are prefixed a DepicaTIon and ADVERTISEMENT. The latter is in these words: ‘‘] must inform the reader that, when I began this first book, I had some thoughts of translating the whole [liad ; but had the pleasure of being diverted from that design, by find- ing the work was fallen intoa much abler hand. I would not therefore be thought to have any other view in publishing this small specimen of Homer’s Iliad, than to bespeak, if possible, the favour of the public to a translation of Homer’s Odysseis, wherein I have already made some progress.”
To the words in this advertisement—When I began this first book— Mr. Pope affixes this note,—See the first line of the dedication.
Turning to the dedication, we find it begin thus: ‘‘ When I first entered upon this translation I was ambitious of dedicating it to the late Lord Halifax.” Over against which words is likewise entered, in Mr. Pope’s hand, the following note. The translator was first known to him (Lord Halifax] four months before his death. He died in May, 1715.
Now, from comparing these two notes together, one sees clearly how Mr. Pope reasoned on the matter. He concluded from Tickell’s say- ing, when he first entered on this translation, that is, began this first book, he thought of dedicating his work to Lord Halifax, that he could not have entertained this thought, if he had not at that time been known to Lord Halifax. But it was certain, it seems, that Mr. Tickell was first known to that lord only four months before his death, in May, 1715. Whence it seemed to follow that this first book had been written within or since that time.
Admitting this conclusion to be rightly made by Mr. Pope, it must indeed be allowed that he had much reason for his charge of insin- cerity on Mr. Addison, who, as a friend that had great influence with the translator, would not have advised, or even permitted, such a design to be entered upon and prosecuted by him at this juncture. But
* It was then in Mr. Warburton’s hands. It was afterwards sold, by mistake, among the other books which he had at his house in town, to Mr. T. Payne, andcame at length into the possession of Isaac Reed, Esq., of Staple’s Inn ; who was so obliging as to make
me a present of it, to be kept in the library at Hartlebury, (in which that of Mr. Pope is included,) where it now remains.
ἘΣ THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
there seems not the least ground for such a conclusion. Lord Halifax was the great patron of wits and poets; and if Tickell had formed his design of translating the Iliad long before Mr. Pope was known to have engaged in that work, he might very well be supposed to think of dedicating to this Meecenas, as much a stranger as he then was to him. Nothing is more common than such intentions in literary men: although Mr. Pope might be disposed to conduct himself, in such a case, with more delicacy or dignity.
I see, then, no reason to infer from the premisses, that Mr. Tickell began his first book but four months before Lord Halifax’s death. For any thing that appears to the contrary, he might have begun, or even finished, it four years before that event, and have only relin- guished the thoughts of prosecuting his translation from the time that he “found this work had fallen,” as he says, “into an abler,”’ that is, Mr. Pope’s, “ hand.”
These passages, however, of the advertisement and dedication, reflected upon and compared together, furnished Mr. Pope, as I sup- pose, with the chief of those odd concurring circumstances, which, as we are told,* convinced him that this translation of the first book of the Iliad was published with Mr. Addison’s participation, if not com- posed by him. If the work had been begun but four months before its appearance, it must have been at least by his allowance and partici- pation; if before that time, (Mr. Tickell’s acquaintance with Lord Halifax not being of so early a date,) it was, most probably, his own composition. And to this latter opinion, it seems, Mr. Pope inclined.
How inconclusive these reasonings are, we have now seen. All that remains, therefore, is, to account for the publication at such a time. And for this I see not why Mr. Tickell’s own reason may not be accepted as the true one,—that he had no other view in pub- lishing this specimen, than to bespeak the favour of the public to a translation of the Odysseis, in which he had made some progress.
‘The time, it must be owned, was an unlucky one. But if Mr. Addison had reason to believe his friend’s motive to be that which he professed, he might think it not fit to divert him from a work which was likely to serve his interest ; (poetical translation being at that time the most lucrative employment of a man of letters ;) and, though it had less merit than Mr. Pope’s, to do him some credit. And for the civility of speaking well of his translation afterwards, or even of assisting him in the revisal of it, this was certainly no more than Mr. Addison’s friendship for the translator required.
That Mr. Addison had, in fact, no unfriendly intention in the part he had taken in this affair, is certain from the passage before cited from the ‘Freeholder,’ where he speaks so honourably, in May,
* In the notes on [the] Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 23
1716, of Mr. Pope’s translation, after all the noise that had been made about Mr. Tickeli’s first book in the summer of 1715. We may, indeed, impute this conduct to fear, or dissimulation ; but a charge of this nature ought surely not to be made but on the clearest and best grounds.
I have the rather introduced these observations into the account of my friend’s life, as he,himself had been led by Mr. Pope’s authority to credit the imputation on Mr. Addison; and, on more occasions than one, had given a countenance to it. And it is but justice to him to assure the reader that when some years before his death I showed him this vindication, he professed himself so much satisfied with it, as to say, if he lived to see another edition of Mr. Pope’s works, he would strike out the offensive reflections on Mr. Addison’s character.
To return now to our subject. We left Mr. Warburton illustrating the works of one of our great poets, and vindicating the moral character ef another. But whatever amusements or friendly offices might employ his pen, he never lost sight of what he had most at heart, the defence of religion. And a controversy then carrying on concerning the miraculous powers of the Christian church, between Dr. Middleton and his opponents, and so managed on both sides as to hurt the cause of Christianity itself, gave him occasion to explain his own sentiments on the subject in an admirable book, entitled, “Julian; or, a Discourse concerning the Earthquake and fiery Eruption which defeated that Emperor’s Attempt to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem.” This work was published in 1750, and is written throughout in the genuine spirit of its author.*
It is introduced by an exquisite preface on the literary character of the fathers, and on the condition of moral science before and after the appearance of Christianity.
This excellent book had the fate of the author’s other writings, to be censured at home. In a letter from Prior-Park to Dr. Balguy, January 17th, 1751-2, ‘‘ They tell me,” says he, “there are some remarks published against my ‘Julian.’ I do not know the nature of them, nor ever shall. That matter interests every clergyman, that is to say, every Christian, in England, as much as myself. Besides, I have long since bid adieu to controversy. I give my sentiments to the public, and there is an end. If any body will oppose them, he has my leave: if any body will defend them, he has my thanks. I propound them freely : I explain them as clearly, and enforce them as strongly, as I can. I think I owe no more either to myself or truth. I am sure I owe no more to the public. Besides, I know a little, as you will see by the new edition of the first and second
* See vol. viii. [Edition of 1811.] VOL. I. D
34 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
volumes of ‘Divine Legation,’ how to correct myself, so have less need of this assistance from others; which you will better understand when you see that I have not received the least assistance from the united endeavours of that numerous band of answerers, who have spared no freedoms in telling me of my faults.”
Again: some months afterwards, writing to the same friend, Bedford-Row, May 12th, 1752, he observes :—.,
“1 think you judge rightly of the effects of Lord Bolingbroke’s writings, as well as of their character. As to his ‘ Discourse on the Canon of Scripture,’ I think it below all criticism, though it had mine. He mentions (and 1 believe. with good faith) that foolish rabbinical fable of Esdras’s restoring the whole lost canon by inspi- ration, and argues from it. However, the redoubtable pen of Sykes, though now worn to the stump, is drawn upon him, or, at least, threatened to be drawn. He threatened, too, to draw it upon poor ‘Julian ;? but he left the execution to another. And who do you think that other proves? Somebody or other, by far more curious than myself, would unearth this vermin; and he is found to be one Nichols, which your university some time ago prosecuted for stealing their books, or rather should have prosecuted. Have I not reason to blame you for your ill-timed clemency? Had they hanged. him, as justice called upon them to do, my book had been safe. 70 is true, he has not fulfilled the old proverb, but rather contributed to a new one, ‘Save a rogue from the gallows, and he will endeavour to save his fellow.’ I had gibbeted up Julian, and he comes by night to cut him down.’ The pleasantry of these reflections has drawn me into a citation of them. Otherwise, it was scarce worth while to tell the reader what some of our own prejudiced countrymen thought of “Julian.”’ For the learned abroad were generally much taken with this work. Among others, the president Montesquieu, who, it seems, was then meditating a visit to his friends in England, writes thus to Mr. Charles Yorke, from Paris, June 6th, 1753: “When you see Dr. Warburton, pray let him know the satisfaction I propose to myself in making a further acquaintance with him, and in taking a nearer view of his great talents. His ‘Julian’ charms me ; although I have but indifferent English readers, and have myself fomgtten a great deal of what I once knew of that language.” *
And speaking of this work some years afterwards, in a letter to me, Mr. Warburton says, ‘My ‘Julian’ has had a great effect in France, where freethinking holds its head as high as in England.
* “Quand vous verrez M. le Docteur WARBURTON, je vous prie de lui dire lidée agréable que je me fais de faire plus ample connoissance avec lui; d’aller trouver la source du sgavoir, et de voir la lumiere de l’esprit : son ouvrage sur Julien m’a enchanté, quoi
que Je n’aie que de trés mauvais lecteurs Anglois, et que j’ai presque oublié tout ce que j’en scavois.’
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 25
This is a consolation to me, as my sole aim is to repress that infernal spirit.” And again: “It has procured me the good-will of the best and greatest man * in France, while there is hardly a nobleman in England knows I have written such a book.” +
This admirable work, as I observed, took its rise from Dr. Middle- ton’s “ Inquiry concerning the Miraculous Powers in the Christian Church.’ That ingenious man died towards the end of this year; and although some difference had arisen between them in 1741, and seems to have kept them asunder for the rest of Dr. Middleton’s life, yet no change appears to have been made, by this misadventure, in Mr. Warburton’s opinion, or even esteem, of him; so constant was he in his friendships, as the reader will see in the following extract from a letter, which he wrote to me just before the doctor’s death : ** Prior-Park, July 11th, 1750. I hear Dr. Middleton has been at London, I suppose to consult Dr. Heberden ¢ about his health, and is returned in an extreme bad condition. [ am much concerned for the poor man, and wish he may recover, with all my heart. Had he had, 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 honour 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 human life, is perfectly astonishing. I believe no one, all things considered, has suffered more from the low and vile passions of the high and low amongst our brethren than myself. Yet God forbid it should ever suffer me to be cold in the gospel interests! which are, indeed, so much my own, that without it I should be disposed to consider humanity as the most forlorn part of the creation.”
What this letter tenderly hints at, was the exact truth. Dr. Middleton was an elegant scholar, and very fine writer; but his vanity having engaged him early in religious controversy on a subject which he did not understand, he had given just offence to some considerable churchmen; and yet would not condescend to recover
“ Duc de Noailles. The intelligence was communicated to the-author by his friend, M. de Silhouette, who admired his writings, and has translated some of them. See Preface to “" Alliance.” + In planning his treatise on Julian, he had proposed, as the title-page sets forth, to “‘inquire into the Nature of that Evidence, which will demand the Assent of every reasonable Man to a miraculous Fact.” But this part of his plan he reserved for another discourse. The subject was, in fact, resumed, and has been sufficiently explained in the ‘‘ Discourse on the Resurrection,” vol. x. Discourse 29. { Edition of 1811.] 1 Dr. Middleton had been well acquainted with Dr. Heberden at Cambridge, where he flourished in great reputation for several years before he removed to London. He has now, [1794,] for some time past, declined all business ; but, through the whole course of it, was the most esteemed of any physician I have known, not only for his skill, but generosity, in the exercise of his profession. My own personal obligations to him must be my excuse for the liberty I have taken in paying this small tribute of respect to his merit and character.
52
36 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
their good opinion by retracting what he had hastily and unwarily advanced. Hence the obstruction to his views of preferment, which by degrees soured his temper so much, that his best friends, as Mr. Warburton found by experience, could not calm his resentments, or keep them from breaking-out into some unhappy prejudices against religion itself. This misadventure was the effect of his passion, not judgment; for his knowledge of theology was but slight, and his talents not those which qualified him to excel in that science. The bent of his genius and studies lay another way, and had raised him to great eminence in polite literature; of which his “ Letter from Rome,” and his “ Life of Cicero,’’ are shining instances. His other works are of much less value, and will soon be forgotten.
Nothing shows the extent of Mr. Warburton’s genius, and the command he had of it, more, than his being able to mix the lightest with the most serious studies, and to pass, as his friend speaks,
“ From grave to gay, from lively to severe,”
with so much grace and facility : a striking instance of which power we have here, in finding “ Julian” between our two poets. For in the very next year, 1751, he appeared again as a critic and commen- tator, in the noble edition he gave of Mr. Pope’s works. And, as here there was no room for emendatory criticism, of all others the easiest to be misapplied or misconstrued, so the public found very little to censure on this occasion. Indeed the main object of the edition being to do justice to his friend, it was natural for him to exert his whole force upon it ; and as none can divine so happily of a poet’s meaning, as the well-exercised critic, if he be at the same time of a congenial spirit with his author, it is no wonder that he made this, what I formerly said of it, and still think it to be, the best edition that was ever given of any classic.
But, admirable as Mr. Warburton was in this elegant species of literature, we are now to take our leave of him under that character ; his editions of Shakspeare and Pope being, as he himself expressed it to me, amusements, which his fondness for the works of one poet, and for the person of another, had engaged him in. We are hence- forth to see him only in his proper office of divine, which he resumed when Mr, Pope’s volumes were out of his hands, and ennobled by a set of sermons preached by him at Lincoln’s Inn, and entitled, “Ὁ Principles of Natural and Revealéd Religion, in two volumes :”’ the former published in 1752, and the other in 1754; to which he added a third in 1767, consisting chiefly of occasional discourses.*
I bring his works of this sort together under one view, that I may
* See vols. ix. and x. [Edition of 1811.]
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 37
consider them at once, and give the reader an idea of their true character.
He had used himself very little to write sermons, till he came to Lincoln’s Inn. His instructions to his parish had either been deli- vered without notes, or extracted from the plainest discourses of our best preachers. In his present situation, he found it necessary to compose his sermons, and with care; his audience consisting wholly of men of education, and those accustomed to reasoning and inquiry. Here was then a scene in which his learning and knowledge might be produced with good effect ; and it was in this kind of discourse that his taste.and studies had qualified him to excel. His sermons are accordingly, all of them, of this cast; not slight harangues on ordinary subjects, but close, weighty, methodical discourses, on the most momentous doctrines of natural and revealed religion ; opening the grounds of them, and supporting them against objections ;. expressed in that style of nervous eloquence which was natural to him, and brightened occasionally, but without affectation, by the liveliest strokes of imagination. In short: they were written for the use of men of parts and learning, and will only be relished by such. They are masterly in their way; but fitter for the closet than the church; I mean, those mixed auditories that are usually to be expected in that place.
There had been a-friendship of long standing between Mr. War- burton and Mr. Charles Yorke, cultivated with great affection and esteem on both sides; the fruit of which appeared in 1753, in the offer of a prebend in the church of Gloucester, by the Lord Chan- cellor Hardwicke. In acknowledgment of this favour, Mr. Warburton addressed the first volume of the “ Divine Legation” to his lordship, when he gave the next edition of that work. Some who were curious in observing coincidencies, and meant to do honour both to the patron and client, took notice that the stall to which Mr. Warburton was preferred, was the same in which the lord chancellor Nottingham, that great patron of all the learned churchmen in his time, had placed Dr. Cudworth: such a similitude was there appre- hended to be between the two magistrates ; and still more strikingly between the two divines, authors of ‘‘ The Intellectual System,” and **The Divine Legation.”
But what idea of dignity soever might be annexed to this prebend, he exchanged it, a year or two after, for one of more value in the church of Durham, which Bishop Trevor, who did himself honour by the disposal of his preferments, very obligingly gave him, at the request of Mr. Murray, now attorney-general, in 1755.
He had been made chaplain to the king the year before; and that promotion, as well as the present, making it decent for him to take
38 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
his doctor’s degree, the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Herring, very wisely took to himself the honour, which the university of Oxford had unhappily declined, of conferring that distinction upon him.
But while his friends were vying with each other in their good offices and attempts to serve him, a matter far more interesting to him, than any preferment, engaged his attention during the course of these two years.
Lord Bolingbroke died in 1751, and his philosophical works were published in 1753. Every one knows the principles and presumption of that unhappy nobleman. He was of that sect, which, to avoid a more odious name, chooses to distinguish itself by that of “ Natural- ism ;” and had boasted in private what feats he should be able to perform in the attack he had long threatened on all our metaphysics and theology ; in other words, on natural and revealed religion.
Some had the simplicity to believe him on his word; and others, it may be, wished him success. All serious men stood aghast at the loud vaunts of this Goliath of the infidel party; and, prepossessed with the ideas of consequence, which the fond applauses of his friends, and, what must ever be lamented, of his tuneful friend, had thrown about him, waited with anxiety for the event.
In the mean time, as that friend said divinely well,—for surely, in this instance, he prophesied, as well as sang,—
‘* Heaven with loud laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.”
Dr. Warburton had very early penetrated the views of Lord Bolingbroke ; and observing some tincture of his principles (but without the knowledge of the author, who could not be trusted with the secret) artfully instilled into the ‘‘ Essay on Man,” had incurred his immortal hatred by making the discovery, and, in consequence of it, by reasoning Mr. Pope out of his hands.* It was easy to foresee what would follow from this vigilant and able divine, when his lord- ship’s godless volumes should come forth; and the dread of it seems to have kept them back for the remainder of his life. The interval, however, was made good use of, in reasoning them with poignant imvectives against the “ Alliance,” and ‘ Divine Legation,” and with whole pages of the grossest personal abuse ; so that, when they appeared, Dr. Warburton was provoked, as well as prepared, to give them a strict examination, and was animated to the undertaking by a just resentment, as well as religious zeal.
And these two principles, the most operative in our nature, were never exerted to better purpose, or with greater effect. He planned the “View” of his philosophy in “ Four Letters to a Friend,” + and,
* See ‘* View of Lord Bolingbroke’s Philosophy,” Letter iv. vol. xii. [Edition of 1811.} + My. Allen, of Prior-Park.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 99
in writing it, has surpassed himself; the reasoning and the wit being alike irresistible, the strongest and keenest that can be con- ceived. He himself was not a little pleased with this work, and says in confidence to a friend,* “41 have given to it all the finishing in my power ; and reckon, if any thing of mine should stumble down to posterity, it will have as good a chance as any. And now, cestus artemque repono.” .
Some of Dr. Warburton’s friends (such of them, I mean, as had been the friends of Mr. Pope) had, of course, been acquainted with Lord Bolingbroke ; and were very naturally in the common opinion of his parts and abilities, without knowing much, or perhaps any thing, of his religious sentiments. These were likely to take offence at the freedom of the “ View,’ which was to show him in a light very different from that in which the world had hitherto seen him. The consequence to himself was clearly foreseen, and with no small concern.
Writing from Prior-Park to Mr. Charles Yorke, August 24th, 1754, while these Letters were drawing up, he says, “1 am busy with my second volume of Sermons, which I propose to publish early in the winter. I amuse myself, too, with another thing, which, were you here, you would be plagued with, because I never like my things so well as while you are reading them. I have a better reason for your reading them. But, to tell you the truth, this flatters me most, the thing will be without my name, and a secret. I wish it may in no degree displease one I have so much reason to value,. as our friend; nay, I would not have it displease any of his friends on his account. You will ask me, then, why I venture upon it? I will tell you sincerely. I think it my duty; for I am a Christian. I think I was designed to be the declared enemy of infidelity ; for I am a little fanatical.”
In a letter also to me, September 7th, 1754, he says, ‘As to my ‘ View of Bolingbroke,’ I tell it you in confidence, I am apprehensive of displeasing some by it whom I most honour, and at a critical time; so that I solemnly assure you, nothing but the sense. of indispensable, duty, as a Christian and a clergyman, could have induced me to run the hazard of doing myself so much injury. But jacta est alea. All other considerations are now past with me; and I let providence take its course without any solicitude on my part.”
And again, December 10th, 1754, some time after the two first letters were published, and while he was preparing the two last: “1 go on pushing this grand enemy of God and godliness. But what I predicted to you, I am sorry to tell you, I have experienced to
* Dr. Balguy.
40 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
be true; that I tread per cineres dolosos. Wowever, my duty tells me, this is a capital case, and I must on.”
What he alludes to is an anonymous letter, sent him by the post, and expostulating with him, but in the friendliest terms, on the manner in which he had treated the subject of the “‘ View”’ in the parts already printed. He guessed at the writer,* and had the highest respect for him. He resolved, therefore, to make his apology to him, and, as he was denied the opportunity of a private explana- tion, in a public answer to his letter. Accordingly, in 1755, he printed the two concluding Letters of the ‘‘ View” with an ** Apology for the two first,” + which now stands in this edition, as it did in the subsequent ones of the “ View” in the author’s lifetime, as a prefatory discourse in vindication of the whole work. The occasion of the subject fired the writer. His very soul came out in every sentence, and is nowhere seen to more advantage than in this “Apology,” which is written throughout with a peculiar glow of sentiment and expression ; and is, at once, the most interesting, and the most masterly, of all his works.
It had the effect, which was natural, on the so-much-respected letter-writer, who thought fit to preserve an inviolable silence in regard to this ‘“‘ Apology ;” but by a signal act of friendship done ta the author very soon after,{ showed how entirely satisfied he was with him.
As to the “ View” itself, it was universally read and admired. The followers of Lord Bolingbroke and his philosophy hung their heads ; the friends of religion took heart ; and these big volumes of impiety sunk immediately into utter contempt.
After this complete triumph over the great chieftain of his party, it would scarce*be worth while to celebrate his successes against inferior adventurers, if one of them had not published his own shame; and if what I owe to Dr. Warburton’s memory did not require me to explain a triflmg matter in which I happened to be concerned.
Mr. Hume had given an early specimen of his freethinking philoso- phy in some super-subtile lucubrations of the metaphysical kind, which, however, did no great mischief to religion; and, what chagrined him almost as much, contributed but little to his own fame, being too sublime, or too dark, for the apprehensions of his readers. For so good a purpose as that of assisting in the common cause of impiety, he thought fit to come out of the clouds, and to attempt a popular vein of writing, as the more likely to get himself read and talked of in the world. In 1749 he therefore gave the public a hash of his stale notions, served-up m the taking form and
* Mr. Murray. + See vol. xii, [Edition of 1811.] t See page 37.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 41
name of ‘Essays,”’ and with a stronger, at least a more undisguised, mixture of atheism than before.
Dr. Warburton, who was then sending his ‘‘ Julian” to the press, saw these ““ Essays,” and had thoughts of closing that work with some strictures upon them. In a letter of September 28th, of that year, to a friend at Cambridge, he says: “I am tempted to have a stroke at Hume in parting. He is the author of a little book called ‘ Philosophical Essays :’ in one part of which he argues against the being of a God; and in another, very needlessly, you will say, against the possibility of miracles. He has crowned the liberty of the press. And yet he has a considerable post under the government. I have a great mind to do justice on his arguments against miracles, which I think might be done in few words. But does he deserve this notice ? Is he known amongst you? Pray answer me these questions. For if his own weight keeps him down, I should be sorry to contribute to his advancement to any place but the pillory.”
No encouraging answer, I suppose, was returned to this letter ; and so the author of the ““ Essays” escaped for this time. His next effort was to discredit religion by what he calls, its ““ Natural His- tory.” This book came out early in 1757, and falling into the hands of Dr. Warburton, provoked him, by its uncommon licentiousness, to enter on the margin, as he went along, such remarks as occurred to him. And when that was too narrow to contain them all, he put down the rest on loose scraps of paper, which he stuck between the leaves. In this state the book was shown to me, as I chanced at that time to be in London with the author, merely as matter of curiosity, and to give me an idea of the contents, how mischievous and extrava- gant they were. He had then written remarks on about two-thirds of the volume ; and I liked them so well, that I advised him, by all means, to carry them on through the remaining parts of it, and then to fit them up, in what way he thought best, for public use, which I told him they very well deserved. He put by this proposal slightly ; but, when I pressed him again on this head, some time after, in a letter from Cambridge, he wrote me the following answer :—
** As to Hume, I had laid it aside ever since you were here. I will now, however, finish my skeleton. It will be hardly that. If then you think any thing can be made of it, and will give yourself the trouble, we may perhaps between us do a little good, which I dare say we shall both think will be worth a little pains. If I have any force in the first rude beating out the mass, you are best able to give it the elegance of form and splendour of polish. This will answer my purpose, to labour together in a joint work to do a little good. Ε will tell you fairly, it is no more the thing it should be, than the Dantzic iron at the forge is the gilt and painted ware at Birmingham.
42 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
It will make no more than a pamphlet ; but you shall take your own time, and make it your summer’s amusement if you will. I propose it bear something like this title: ‘Remarks on Mr. Hume’s late Essay, called, The Natural History of Religion, by a Gentleman of Cambridge, in a Letter to the Rey. Dr. Warburton.’ I propose the address should be with the dryness and reserve of a stranger, who likes the method of the ‘ Letters on Bolingbroke’s Philosophy,’ and follows it here, against the same sort of writer, inculcating the same impiety, Naturalism, and employing the same kind of arguments. The address will remove it from me; the author, a gentleman of Cambridge, from you; and the secrecy of printing, from us both.”
I saw by this letter he was not disposed to take much trouble about the thing. Accordingly his papers were soon after sent down to me at Cambridge, pretty much in the state I had seen them in at London, so far as they then went, only with additional entries in the latter part of the book. However, in this careless detached form, I thought his observations too good to be lost. And the hint of the “address” suggested the means of preserving them, without any injury to his reputation, and indeed without much labour to myself. Having therefore transcribed the ‘“ Remarks,” * with little alteration, I only wrote a short introduction and conclusion, merely to colour the proposed fiction ; and in this form sent them to the press.
When Dr. Warburton saw the pamphlet, he said, I should have done much more, and worked up his hasty remarks in my own way. He doubted also whether the contrivance, as 1 had managed it, would not be seen through. But in this he was mistaken ; for the disguise, as thin as it was, answered its purpose in keeping the real author out of sight.
Mr. Hume in particular (understanding, I suppose, from his book- seller, who was also mine, that the manuscript came from me) was the first to fall into the trap. He was much hurt, and no wonder, by so lively an attack upon him, and could not help confessing it in what he calls, his “Own Life;” in which he has thought fit to honour me with greater marks of his resentment than any other of the writers against him; nay, the spiteful man goes so far as to upbraid me with being “a follower’’ (indeed, a closer, in this instance, than he apprehended) “ οὗ the Warburtonian school.’
This idle story would not have been worth the telling, but for the reason already given, that I could not, in justice to the author, take the merit of so fine a work to myself. And yet, in disclaiming it, the reader sees I make but an awkward figure, as being obliged to open the secret of our little stratagem, in which the grace of it mainly consists,
* They are given in vol. xii, in their original form. [Edition of 1811.]
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 43
‘Dr. Warburton had now for some time been preparing, and in 1758 he printed, a correct and improved edition of the first volume of the “ Divine Legation.” The notes to this edition are numerous and large ; some of which are answers to objections made to him by archbishop Secker. ‘Where you find me,” says he in a letter to one of his friends, (Prior-Park, April 19th, 1758,) ‘ speaking, in the notes, of objections that have been made, understand them of the present archbishop’s, who formerly gave me some sheets of them, which I have still by me, and have in this edition considered all I thought worth observing.”
Dr. Secker was a wise man, an edifying preacher, and an exemplary bishop. But the course of his life and studies had not qualified him to decide on such a work as that of the “ Divine Legation.” Even in the narrow walk of literature he most affected, that of criticising the Hebrew text, it does not appear that he attained to any great dis- tinction. His chief merit, and surely it was a very great one, lay in explaining clearly and popularly, in his sermons, the principles deli- vered by his friend, bishop Butler, in his famous book of “ The Analogy,” and in showing the important use of them to religion.
Of this last admirable prelate, what Dr. Warburton’s sentiments were, appears from a letter he wrote to Dr. Balguy on his death, which happened in 1752: ‘* You have heard of the death of the poor bishop of Durham. The church could have spared some other pre- lates much better ; and, in its present condition, could but ill spare him. For his morals and serious sense of religion, to say nothing of his intellectual endowments, did honour to his station. His death is particularly unhappy for his chaplain, Dr. Forster. He is my friend, whom I much value, as one of great worth, and whose ill luck I much lament. He has not only seen his hopes drop through, when he was every thing but in the very possession of them, but has lost a patron, who deserved the name of friend, which goes much harder in the separation than the other.” (Prior-Park, June 21st, 1752.)
In the memoirs of such a life as I am now writing, nothing, I am sensible, interests the reader less than the chapter of preferments. Yet these must not be wholly overlooked. Towards the end of the year 1757, Dr. Warburton had been promoted to the deanery of Bristol. And in the beginning of the year 1760, by Mr. Allen’s interest with the minister, Mr. Pitt, he was advanced to the bishopric of Gloucester.
III.
In the common estimation, this last was a preferment suitable to his merit. Mr. Pitt himself gloried in it, as what did honour to his administration. I remember to have seen a letter of his, in which he
44 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,
said, ‘‘that nothing of a private nature, since he had been in office, had given him so much pleasure as his bringing Dr. Warburton upon the bench.” This virtuous self-gratulation became the minister; and others may be of his mind. But I have sometimes doubted with myself, whether the proper scene of abilities like his be not a private _ station, where only great writers have the leisure to do great things.
Here, at least, it was that “The Alliance”’ and “ Divine Legation” were written: and here, too, was composed the immortal work of ** Ecclesiastical Polity,” which in the end proved so fatal to our English Disciplinarians ; now rising again in the shape of Levellers and Socinians ; but to fall again, in good time, by one or other of our learned clergy, going forth against them, in the spirit of order and orthodoxy, from the cool invigorating shade of private life.*
But let me not be misunderstood. When I say that great men should not be taken from their privacy, I speak of great men indeed. The church is, no doubt, much benefited and adorned by a learned prelacy. The pastoral functions cannot well be discharged by any other. But a genius of the high order here mentioned, is given by a gracious Providence, now and then in the course of ages, “to correct,” as Dr. Middleton observed, ‘‘ the sentiments and manners of mankind.”
Such a man as this is lessened by elevation; he is in himself, methinks, too great to be advanced.
But be this as it may ; it must be allowed that religion and learn- ing suffered somewhat by his promotion, as it interrupted those designs which he had formed for the service of both, and would have executed, if his whole time had been at his command. He himself lamented this inconvenience of his public station ; and, after all, was not able (such was the root his former habits of study had taken in him) to be so active in it as he wished.
He performed the ordinary duties of his office with regularity ; but further than this he could not prevail with himself to go. And perhaps, on the whole, it was better that he did-not ; as the leisure he thus procured to himself, was spent to more advantage in defend- ing religion, than it could have been in a vain endeayour to support that discipline which the spirit of the times has utterly overthrown.
They who stood at a distance from him, and knew him only by the report of such as had no kindness for him, concluded, at least, that he would take an active part in the House of Lords. I have heard of a certain minister who dreaded his promotion on this
* Soon after I had hazarded this prediction, I had the pleasure to see one half of it completely fulfilled. See Dr. Horsley’s ‘ Charge to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of St. Alban’s,” and his unanswerable ‘* Letters,” in vindication of it. This able divine
was deservedly advanced to the see of St. David’s in 1788, and has since (1793) been translated to that of Rochester, and this year (1802) to that of St: Asaph,
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 45
account, and thought he saw a second Atterbury in the new bishop of Gloucester. But all such were egregiously mistaken. Alas, he had neither talents nor inclination for parliamentary intrigue or parlia- mentary eloquence! He had other instruments of fame and consi- deration in his hands, and was infinitely above the vanity of being caught ‘* With the fine notion of a busy man,”
as one of our poets * well expresses it.
On the 30th of January, 1760, ten days after his consecration, he preached the customary sermon before the Lords. I mention this only because his sermon, which, of course, was printed, is one of the best he ever wrote, and the best, without question, that ever was preached on that day. It could not be any other, since, besides his great abilities as a writer, he possessed a perfect knowledge of our history, and of that period of it in particular. I have heard him say, there was scarce a pamphlet or memoir published between 1640 and 1660 which he had not read. This predilection for the history of the rebellion seems to have been occasioned by a circumstance just touched by me in the entrance of this discourse. I observed that his grandfather had been active in that scene. His grandmother, a woman of sense and spirit, lived to a great age, and would often, as I have heard him say, take a pleasure to relate to him, when a boy, such passages of those times as she remembered and was well acquainted with. This taste of those transactions, made interesting to him by the part which his family had taken in them, raised an eager curiosity in him, as he grew up, to know more of the subject. And thus he not only acquired an early insight into that part of our history, but continued through life to be so fond of it, that he had thoughts, at one time, of writing the history of the civil wars ; and would, without doubt, have done it with supreme ability, and, as the tenor of his sermons shows, with equal candour, if the studies of his own profession had left him at leisure to engage in so great a work.
Lord Clarendon was one of his favourite characters, as well as writers ; he honoured the man, and admired his History of the Grand Rebellion in the highest degree. Yet there is a copy of that work now extant, and in the hands of his family, in which he has entered marginal notes containing so minute a censure of all that is blamable in it, that a stranger who had heard nothing of his predilection for Lord Clarendon, would be apt to think him an enemy to the noble person’s writings and reputation. With such wonderful impartiality is the censure made! +
* Dryden. + Since I wrote this paragraph, the valuable copy alluded to, of
Lord Clarendon’s “ History,’ has been very obligingly put into my hands, to be pre- served in Hartlebury library.
46 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
Another instance of his skill in the story of those times, and of his fairness in representing it, may be mentioned. When he was one summer in residence at Durham, he found Neal’s ‘History of the Puritans” in their library, and for his amusement took it with him to his own house, and “scribbled enough upon the margins of the several volumes”’ (I use his own words in a Jetter to me) ‘‘ to expose and confute the mistakes and misrepresentations of the writer.” By the favour of a friend, I have obtained a correct copy of those notes, and believe the reader will agree with me, that they deserve a place in this complete collection of his works.*
To put things of a sort together, I will here mention another book which he has rendered valuable by some manuscript animadversions. Writing to me from Weymouth, where Mr. Allen had a’ house, and where he generally passed some part of the year with his family, he tells me how his hours of leisure were employed at that place. The letter is dated September 3d, 1758. ‘If you were here, you would see how I have scribbled over the margins of Tindal’s ‘ Christianity as Old as the Creation.” I think I have him as sure as I had Collins: that is, I overturn the pillars of this famous edifice of impiety, which all the writers against him hitherto have left standing, busying themselves only to untile his roof. This is my present amusement for a fortnight at Weymouth.” +
The bishopric of Gloucester was the more agreeable to him, as the deanery of Bristol had been for the same reason, on account of its situation, being in the neighbourhood of Prior-Park. At so small a distance from his diocess, he could perform the duties of it without much trouble, or loss of time in journeys, which were always irksome to him. Yet some months in the summer he usually passed at Gloucester, and resided there altogether after Mrs. Allen’s death.
Wherever he was, he chiefly employed himself in revising his printed works, with the view of making them as complete and useful as he could.
Among others he spent some time on his ‘Sermons ;” and in 1761 he reprinted one of them, which he took to be of importance, in a small size, that it might be more known than it was likely to be in the larger volume. This was a well-considered and elaborate dis- course on “The Lord’s Supper;” { a subject which had been so embroiled by two eminent writers of opposite principles, that it became necessary to take it out of their hands, and to guard the public from being bewildered and misled, either by a Popish or Socinian comment. In a moderate compass (for he never dealt in the verbiage of ordinary writers) he has refuted the system of either
* See vol. xii. [Edition of 1811.] } This book is also in my possession; and will be found in the library at Hartlebury. } See vol, ix. [Edition of 1811.]
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 47
party, and explained his own notion of the sacrament (which was also that of the great Cudworth) in so clear a manner, that few men of sense and judgment will now question where the truth lies.
But the good bishop was always meditating something for the benefit of religion. What is called Methodism had now spread among the people. It was a new species of Puritanism, or rather the old one revived under a new name. ‘This sect first appeared at Oxford, where two fellows of colleges, Mr. George Whitefield, and Mr. John Wesley, were its chief promoters and supports. They were both of them, it may be, frank enthusiasts at setting out. The former is said to have been a weak, the latter was unquestionably a shrewd, man.
Mr. Wesley had rambled through a part of Germany and North America, as well as Great Britain and Ireland, pretending everywhere to a sort of apostolic mission; and, at a convenient distance of time from these peregrinations, his manner was to print journals of them, for the edification of his followers. The bishop of Gloucester had watched his motions with care for some years, and now thought he had gained such an insight into his views and character from his journals, which he constantly read, as to be able to give a fair and full account of him to the public.
It seems to have been principally for this reason that he altered and enlarged what he had written on the influence of the Holy Spirit, in the second volume of his sermons; or rather he composed that discourse anew, and, with many improvements, moulded it into a regular treatise on the subject, which he published in 1762, under the name of “The Doctrine of Grace ; or, the Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit vindicated from the Insults of Infidelity, and the Abuses of Fanaticism,”’ in two small volumes, | 2mo.*
He designed this work, as the title shows, for a vindication of that most important Christian doctrine from the abuses of libertine, as well as fanatical, writers. The former he confuted with his usual energy and precision ; the latter, as not being accessible on the side of reason, he attacked with ridicule, in holding up to view, and exposing their leader and archetype, John Wesley, out of the materials largely furnished to him in that adventurer’s own journals. This discourse, like Pascal’s ‘‘ Letters,’ and for the same reason, the singular merit of the composition, will be read when the sect that gave occasion to it is forgotten ; or rather, the sect will find a sort of immortality in this discourse.
As to the grave and reasoning part of this work, that also, as I said, is written with great weight and authority. But I think I see a degree of labour in the expression of some parts, which shows his
* See vol. viii. [Edition of 1811.]
48 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
pen had ‘now lost something of its wonted freedom and facility, though it retained its force.
From this time he seems to have planned no new work of difficulty and length, but to have confined himself very properly to the single purpose of giving the last finishing to his former writings.*
Accordingly in 1765 he published a new edition of the ‘“‘ Second Part of the Divine Legation,” in three volumes ; and, as it had now received his last hand, he presented it to his great friend, Lord Mansfield, as he had done the former part, when finished to his mind, to Lord Hardwicke. But there was this difference in the character of the two dedications: that to the lord chancellor was respectful and ceremonious, being little more than a letter of thanks to his patron; this other to the chief justice was sublime and pathetic; in short, the overflowing of an affectionate heart to a generous and much-esteemed friend.
The subject, too, of the latter is of that high importance which a great writer chooses when he would consult his own and his friend’s dignity, and transmit them both with advantage to succeeding times. It sets before him the state of religion in England for half a century past, and, with a confidential freedom, deduces the causes of that alarming neglect into which it had fallen, and by which, indeed, the author had been induced to project this defence of it, and to put it into his lordship’s hands. The information is interesting, and the manner in which it is conveyed, solemn and awful. It will be read hereafter with no small attention ; and the time will come when this discourse will be reckoned among the chief honours of the noble person addressed.
This edition of 1765, besides many other improvements with which it was enriched, is further distinguished by a remarkable discourse, printed at the close of the last volume, and entitled, ‘‘ An Appendix concerning the Book of Job.” + In this short piece, which is exqui- sitely written, he repels an attack made upon him by Dr. Lowth. The dispute was managed on both sides with too much heat ; but, on the part of the bishop, with that superiority of wit and argument, which, to say the truth, in all his controversial writings, he could not well help. For it may, I believe, be as truly said of him as it was of Carneades, ‘‘ That he never defended an opinion which he did not prove, nor opposed any which he did not confute.” tf
* The bishop grew very exact and critical in giting the later editions of his works, so that he would review the same sheet several times, and, of course, gave the compositor no small trouble ; which made his learned printer, Mr. Bowyer, whom he much esteemed for his friendly qualities, as well as merit in his profession, say pleasantly to him on a certain occasion, ‘‘ Those were fine times, when you never blotted a line, but allowed me to print your copy as fast as it came to hand, and without interruption.” t See vol. iii. [of this editlon.] t * Qui nullam unquam, in illis suis disputationibus, rem defendit, quam non probarit; nullam oppugnavit, quam non everterit.’”.—Cicero De Oratore, lib. ii. cap. 38.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 49
Dr. Lowth, afterwards bishop of London, was a man of learning and ingenuity, and of many virtues ; but his friends did his character no service by affecting to bring his merits, whatever they were, into competition with those of the bishop of Gloucester. His reputation as a writer was raised chiefly on his Hebrew literature as displayed in those two works,* his ‘‘ Latin Lectures on Hebrew Poetry,” and his “English Version of the Prophet Isaiah.” The former is well and elegantly composed, but in a vein of criticism not above the common ; the latter I think is chiefly valuable, as it shows how little is to be expected from Dr. Kennicott’s work, (which yet the learned bishop pronounces to be the greatest and most important that has been undertaken and accomplished since the revival of letters,t) and from a new translation of the Bible for public use.
On the subject of his quarrel with the bishop of Gloucester I could say a great deal ; for I was well acquainted with the grounds and the progress of it. But besides that I purposely avoid entering into details of this sort, I know of no good end that is likely to be answered by exposing to public censure the weaknesses of such men.
In the next year, 1766, he gave a new and much-improved edition ef “The Alliance,” meaning to leave these two great works, now wrought-up to all the perfection he could bestow upon them, as legacies to the public; or rather as monuments to posterity of his unwearied jove of the Christian religion, and (for the sake of so dear an interest) of the Church of England.
With a third volume of sermons already alluded to, and printed in 1767, he closed his literary course ; exeept that he made an effort towards publishing the ninth and last book of the “Divine Legation ἡ on a subject he had much at heart, which he had long and diligently considered, and which now, for some years, he had been labouring to digest and explain in the best manner he could. But of this matter it will be expected that I give the reader a more particular account.
The argument of the “Divine Legation,’ properly so called, was completed in six books ; but the plan of it required three more, in which the author propesed, as he tells us, ‘‘ to remove all conceivable objections against the conclusion, and to throw in every collateral light upon the premisses.”
But the argument itself was so ill-received, and so violently opposed by many of the clergy, that he grew disgusted at the treat-
“ In saying this, I speak the sense of those who rate his talents at the highest, and would be thought te do most honour to his literary character. For myself, I confess I have always considered a juvenile essay of the excellent person (I mean a poem pub- lished by him under the name of ‘‘ The Judgment of Hercules’) as the best specimen of his taste and genius, and one that gave the promise of greater things than he ever performed afterwards. } Preliminary Dissertation, p. 62,
VOL. I. E
50 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
ment he met with, and could not be prevailed upon to finish his design in support of it. His letters are full of complaints on this head. In 1741, some time before he published the second volume, he says to one of his friends, “1 am still condemned to drudge in the mines of antiquity. I may well give it that slavish appellation, while [ am so used by my masters, the clergy, for whose ease and profit I am working.” And -writing to another in 1754, when the two first Letters of the “ View” were coming out, he observes with indigna-
“tion, “ You will see there is a continued apology for the clergy ; yet they will neither love me the more, nor forgive me the sooner, for all I can say in their behalf.”’ *
And so on a hundred other occasions. The truth is, his resent- ment at the established clergy for their long and fierce opposition to his favourite work was the greatest weakness I ever observed in him. The number of books and pamphlets that appeared against him for twenty years together was, indeed, very great. But, the nature of his work considered, and his own freedom in dissenting from all others as occasion offered, what less could be expected? And when he had given two or three of his principal adversaries, as he did, a complete answer, he should not have suffered the clamour of the rest to divert him from the great design he had projected. But his conduct in this instance was not that which might have been expected from his usual magnanimity. When I sometimes expostulated with him upon it, his answer was, ‘‘ I surely have reason to think myself very ill used. The enemies of revealed religion and of the Church of England I have treated as they deserved, and am neither surprised nor hurt at their resentments against me. ΤῸ their censures or commendations I can be equally indifferent. But that my brethren the established clergy, the friends of religion, and fellow-members of that society whose cause I am pleading,—that these should set themselves against me with so much rancour, is what 1 cannot so well bear. If, indeed, the published volumes of the ‘Divine Legation’ be so weak or so mis- chievous as they suppose, 1 will not add to the offence given them by adding any more.”
One sees what was at the bottom of the good man’s mind. He loved the Church of England and its ministers, and had shown his zeal for them on all occasions. He was, therefore, hurt at not receiving that return of good-will from them which his life and con- science told him he might expect, and had deserved. Yet,-as much as he felt the injury, and complained of it, he was never moved by it, as many others, with less provocation, and of less irritability, have been, to retract his good opinion of them, or to alter his conduct towards them in any respect.
* MS. Letters in my hands,
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 51
He only withheld the sequel of his capital work from them; and, unhappily, he persisted in this resolution till time had softened their passions, and, of course, his own.
At length the orthodoxy of his sentiments seemed gradually to be acknowledged: his own resentments proportionably abated; and from the time he had given the corrected edition of his ‘ Divine Legation’ in 1765, he was in earnest about resuming so much, at least, of his long-neglected work, as he had meant to comprise in the last or ninth book. The seventh and eighth, though the materials for them, too, were at hand, he had long since despaired of com- posing ; but this last being an attempt to give a rationale of Chris- tianity, he anxiously wished, for the importance of the subject, to leave behind him complete.
But the time was now past. Not only the business of his station broke in upon his leisure ; the infirmities of age came insensibly upon him. His faculties, hitherto so bright and vigorous, suffered some eclipse and diminution of their force from his growing indispositions. “1 read still,” he would often say to me, “ with the usual pleasure ; but I compose with less ease, and with less spirit.” In a letter to me from Gloucester, September 4th, 1769, he writes in the following manner :—
“1 have received your kind letter of advice.*...... You know, by experience, how difficult it is, when we have once got into a wicked habit of thinking, to leave it off. All I can promise is, if that will satisfy you, to think to no purpose ; and this I know, by experience, I can do; having done so for many a good day.
“Ἱ think you have Leard me say, that my delicious season is the autumn ; the season which gives most life and vigour to my mental faculties. The light mists, or, as Milton calls them, the ‘ steams,’ that rise from the fields in one of these mornings, give the same relief to the views, that the blue of the plum (to take my ideas from the season) gives to the appetite. But I now enjoy little of this plea- sure, compared to what I formerly had in an autumn morning, when { used, with a book in my hand, to traverse the delightful lawns and hedgerows round about the town of Newark, the unthinking place of my nativity.”
And again, July 11th, 1770: ‘* Hunter sent me his ‘ View of Lord Bolingbroke’s Character.’ He is a good man; but in this book I think he has shown himself very absurd and indiscreet: absurd, in a florid declamation ; and indiscreet, as well as very injudicious, in the most extravagant encomium of Bolingbroke’s parts that ever was ; even to say ‘he reasoned with the pride of a superior spirit, and I had almost said with the faculties of an angel.’
* Not to pursue his studies too closely.
E 2
2 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
«This disposed me to look again into the reasoning of this supe- rior spirit, this angelic man, as I have collected together the best he has in my ‘ View of’ his ‘Philosophy.’ I have done it justice. But this retrospect is accompanied with a mortifying conviction, that the time is now past when I was able to write with that force. Expect to find in my future writings the marks of intellectual decay. But so much for that matter.”
In my answer to this letter from Thureaston, July 23rd, to soothe the mind of my friend under this unwelcome discovery, and to prevail upon him, if I could, to relax those efforts in composition which, not being so easy to him as they had been, might affect his health and spirits, I wrote as follows: ‘As to what you say of your not writing with the force you formerly did, it may very well be, and yet be no subject of mortification. For besides that you can afford to abate something of your ancient force, and yet have enough left, force itself has not, in all periods of life, the same grace. The close of one of these long and bright days has not the flame and heat of noon, and would be less pleasing if it had. And I know not why it may not be true, in the critical, as well as moral, sense of the poet’s words,
‘ Lenior et melior fis accedente senecta.’
«But what I would chiefly say on the subject is this, that, whether with force or without it, I would only wish your future writings to be an amusement to you, and not a labour; and this I think is the proper use to be made of your observation, if it be ever so well founded.”
In short, I continued to express myself in this way to him and his family with so little reserve, that he saw my intention was to draw him off by degrees from writing at all, which he takes notice of in a letter of the next year, June 2nd, 1771, though with some little chagrin, as was but too natural, at this plain dealing.
“1 never believed I should feel so tenderly for as I now do. A suffering friend’s good qualities, in such a condition, separate themselves, and rise superior to his failings, which we are insensibly
disposed to forget. If this be the case of common acquaintance in certain seasons, what must be our constant sentiments of a real friend at all seasons, who loses no occasion of expressing every mode of tenderness towards those he loves! I fell into this train of thinking by what my wife told me, with much pleasure, a little before I left London. She said, that Dr. Hurd assured her that I would write no more. I received this news, which gave her so much satisfaction, with an approving smile. I was charmed with the tenderness of friendship which conveyed, in so inoffensive a manner, that fatal secret which Gil Blas was incapable of doing, as he ought, to his patron the archbishop of Granada,”
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 53
I insert these extracts, chiefly in reference to the ninth book of the “Divine Legation,” which twenty years before would have been finished in a few weeks, and with that flame of genius which irradi- ates the former books, but which now lay under his hands many years, was written by snatches and with difficulty, and left incomplete by him at last.* An unwelcome part this of the little history Iam writing! yet not unuseful, if it may admonish superior writers to place a just con- fidence in themselves, and little ones to treat them with something more respect. Cudworth and Warburton are memorable and instruct- ive instances to either purpose.
The misfortune, in the case of the latter, was, that although he had digested in his own mind, long ago, the substance of the ninth book, and was perpetually meditating upon it, yet he had committed very little of it to paper; his way being to put down in writing only short notes of what he intended to enlarge upon, and to work them up only when he was preparing to send his copy to the press. This, in his best days, was so easy to him, that, in printing some of his elaborate works, he had not in his hands two sheets together, but sent the copy to his printer as fast as it was composed.
I know indeed that many persons, from the compass and. variety of his learning, imagined that he drew the materials of it from a volumi- nous common-place. ‘The fact was just otherwise. His memory was so tenacious, that he trusted every thing to it: or if he may be said to have kept a common-place, it was nothing more than a small inter- leaved pocket almanac, of about three inches square; in which he inserted now and then a reference to a curious fact or passage, that he met with in his reading, but chiefly short hints of sentiments and reflections, which occasionally struck him, and might some time or other be put to use. At the end of every year, he tore out of his almanac such leaves as contained any of those reflections, and put them together under general heads, that he might recur to them, on occa- sion, the more readily. Of these papers, or rather collections of papers, I have many in my hands, relative to the subjects of the three last books of the ‘‘ Divine Legation ;”” and from these the ninth book, such as he left it, was composed.
Another inconvenience, attending the late composition of this book, was, that he had occasionally delivered, in his sermons, and other printed works, some of the leading principles contained in it. Thus he had, in effect, anticipated a good part of his subject. Nor was this all.
* Yet it may be concluded from the subject, which is a general view of God’s moral dispensations from Adam to Christ, (see ‘‘ Divine Legation,” book vi. sect. vi. at the end, and book ix. at the beginning,) that very little is wanting to complete the author’s design ; only, what he had proposed to say on the apocalyptic prophecies, and which may be sup- one from the “ Discourse on Antichrist.” (See Discourse xxviii. vol. x. [Edition of 1811.])
δά. ᾿ς THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
Finding the labour of composing troublesome to him, he quoted from himself very freely ; and such passages as had found a place elsewhere, when the purpose of completing the last book was suspended or laid aside, were now inserted in it, without much alteration, in order to carry on the thread and order of his discourse.
From both these causes, therefore, (his not having reduced to form the materials he had provided for the ninth book, and his having already worked up some part of them,) it is easy to see the disadvan- tage with which he came, in the close of his long life, to the composi- tion of this work. His memory and invention were not what they had been ; his facility and variety of expression were not the same ; and, what was worst of all, the grace of novelty in the subject was in some measure gone off.
It was therefore matter of deliberation with me, for some time, whether I should insert the ninth book, though printed, so far as it goes, by himself, entire and in its own form, or only some fragments of it. But, on further consideration, I judged it right to give that work exactly as the author left it; especially, as the subject is highly interesting, and even new, unless where anticipated by himself; the method clear and exact; and the whole cast of composition masterly > his reasonings being carried on, if not with the splendid ease and per- spicuity of his best manner, yet with a force and spirit, both in the sentiment and expression, which may well excite our admiration, when the circumstances under which he wrote are considered.
In a word, this ninth book of the “ Divine Legation,”’ under all the disadvantages with which it appears, is the noblest effort that has hitherto been made to give a rationale of Christianity. How far it may satisfy those who have so long and so loudly called for it, will be now seen; without doubt no farther than as it may agree (if, in any respects, it should agree) with their reason. In the mean time, the investigation is made with the best design—
«ΤῸ justify the ways of God to man;”
and, let me add, in a way that entitles it to another sort of regard than is due to theories, constructed, as they usually are, on fanciful suppo- sitions, and arbitrary assumptions : since every thing, here, is advanced on the sure grounds of natural and revealed religion : the one estimated: by the purest reason ; the other, interpreted with an awful reverence of the written word, and according to the rules of the soundest and soberest criticism.
While the good bishop was thus exerting his last strength in the cause of religion, he projected a method by which he hoped to render it effectual service after his death. This was by the institution of a lecture on PROPHECY; a subject which he conceived had not been considered with the care it ought ; and from a thorough discussion of
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. δῦ
which, he assured himself, much additional force would arise to the proof of the Christian religion. He had himself opened a way to the successful investigation of the general subject, in some principles deli- vered in the “‘ Divine Legation,” and in his confutation of Collins’s book by means of those principles. But some particular prophecies had struck his attention, as furnishing the most decisive argument for the truth of Christianity. In the preface to his Remarks, part il. printed so long ago as 1745, he says, “I have ever thought the pro- phecies relating to Antichrist, interspersed up and down the New and Old Testament, the most convincing proof of the truth of the Christian religion, that any moral matter is capable of receiving.” And again : ‘This question (namely, what individual power is meant in the pro- phecies) is one, on the right determination of which alone, I am fully persuaded, one might rest the whole truth of the Christian religion.” *
Under this persuasion then, in 1768, he gave five hundred pounds in trust to Lord Mansfield, Sir Eardley Wilmot, and Mr. Charles Yorke, for the purpose of founding a lecture at Lincoln’s Inn, in the form of a sermon, “ to prove the truth of revealed religion in general, and of the Christian in particular, from the completion of the prophe- cies in the Old and New Testament, which relate to the Christian church, especially to the apostasy of papal Rome.”
The subject is infinitely curious, and of vast extent: for those who have taken it to be too much narrowed by specifying the prophecies concerning Antichrist, seem not to have understood the compass of the controversy, nor the terms of the institution itself. The truth is, there is more danger that lecturers will be wanting to the institution, than that it will not afford matter and scope enough for their discus- sion. He was anxious to leave this important trust in the best hands. And while it continues in such as have had the management of it, there is no doubt that the best supply which the age furnishes will be pro- vided for this lecture. And, if I had not myself preached the first course of these sermons, I should add that, hitherto, their choice of lecturers has afforded no signal cause of complaint.
It was afterwards in the bishop’s contemplation to double the origi- nal endowment. But he was diverted from this design, though with some difficulty, by those who represented to him that the sum given was sufficient to answer his purpose of engaging men of ability to read his lecture, if they were influenced by such motives as became them, a regard for their own honour, and a zeal for the service of religion ; and that more could answer no good purpose, nay, might easily be abused to bad ones, if they were not.
The last years of the bishop’s life were clouded with misfortune, as
* See ‘Remarks on several occasional Reflections,’ &c., part ii. preface, vol. xi. [ Edition of 1811.]
56 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
well as indisposition. He had for some time been so sensible of his declining health, that he read little, and wrote less. But in the course of the year 1775, the loss of a favourite son and only child,* who died of a consumption in his twentieth year, when every hope was spring- ing up in the breast of a fond parent, to make amends, as it were, for his want of actual enjoyment—this sudden affliction, I say, oppressed him to that degree, as to put an end to his literary labours, and even amuse- ments, at once. From that disastrous moment he lived on indeed for two or three years ; but when he had settled his affairs, as was proper, upon this great change in his family, he took no concern in the ordi- nary occurrences of life, and grew so indifferent to every thing, that even his books and writings seemed, thenceforth, to be utterly disre-. garded by him.
Not that his memory and faculties, though very much impaired, were ever wholly disabled. I saw him so late as October, 1778, when I went into his diocess to confirm for him. On our first meeting, before his family, he expressed his concern that I should take that journey, and put myself to so much trouble, on his account. And afterwards, he took occasion to say some pertinent and obliging things, which showed not only his usual friendliness of temper, but the command he had of his attention. Nor was this all. The even- ing before I left him, he desired the family to withdraw, and then entered into a confidential discourse with me on some private affairs, which he had much at heart, with as much pertinence and good sense as he could have done in any former part of his life; such was the
* He had been placed, much to his father’s satisfaction, under the care of Dr. Hali- fax ; then an eminent tutor of Trinity Hall at Cambridge, and the king’s professor of law in that university; who in 1782 was advanced to the see of Gloucester, and trans- lated in 1789 to that of St. Asaph. He died March 4th, 1790.—His distinguished worth and ability deservedly raised him to the high rank he held in the church.—But his cha- racter is given more at large in the following elegant inscription, composed by his father- in-law, the Rev. Dr. William Cooke, dean of Ely, and provost of King’s College, Cam- bridge, and engraved on his monument in the church of Warsop, in Nottinghamshire}; of which church the bishop was rector, and in which, for the reason assigned in the two first lines of the inscription, he was buried.
Hic juxta filiolum dulcissimum acerbo olim fato prereptum paternas exuvias deponi voluit vir reverendissimus SAMUEL HALIFAX LL, D. et 8. T. P. Ex hac viecinia oriundus primisque literis imbutus in academia protenus Cantabrigiensi floruit juris civilis
prelector publicus et professor regius in curia prerogativa Cantuariensi facultatum registrarius in hac ecclesia rector in ecclesia cathedrali Glocestriensi primd deinde Asaphensi episcopus que per omnia officia ingenio claruit et eruditione et industria singulari summa in ecclesiam Anglicanam fide concionum vi ac suavitate flexanima scriptorum nitore et elegantia vita insuper id quod primarium sibi semper habuit inculpabili Natus est apud Mansfield Jan. 18, 1733, calculo oppressus properata morte obiit Martii 4, 1790, ztatis eheu 57 Catharina conjux cum filio unico et sex filiabus superstes relicta in aliquod desiderii sui solamen merens P.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 57 -
power he had over his mind, when roused to exert himself by some interesting occasion. But this was an effort which could not be sus- tained very long. In less than half an hour the family returned, and he relapsed into his usual forgetfulness and inattention.
In this melancholy state he languished till the summer following, when he expired at the palace in Gloucester, on the 7th of June, 1779, and was buried in his cathedral, at no great distance from the west door, and near to the grave of one of his predecessors, bishop Benson.
A neat mural monument has been put up there to his memory, with the following inscription :—
TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM WARBURTON, D.D. FOR MORE THAN NINETEEN YEARS
BISHOP OF THIS SEE;
A PRELATE OF THE MOST SUBLIME GENIUS, AND EXQUISITE LEARNING ; BOTH WHICH TALENTS HE EMPLOYED, THROUGH A LONG LIFE, IN THE SUPPORT OF WHAT HE FIRMLY BELIEVED, THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND OF WHAT HE ESTEEMED THE BEST ESTABLISHMENT OF IT, THE CHUKCH OF ENGLAND.
IV.
Ir only remains for me to draw together the several parts of the bishop’s character, and to present them to the reader in one view ; which I shall now attempt, with the affection of a friend, no doubt, yet, on the whole, with as much severity as I ought. For I remem- ber the wise and humane reflection of the great biographer, who, in his life of Cimon, expresseth himself to this purpose: ‘ When a painter undertakes to give us the portrait of a beautiful person, if there be any smaller blemishes in his subject, we do not expect him to omit them altogether; for then the picture would be unlike: nor to express them with too much care ; for then it becomes disgusting.
“In like manner, it being difficult, or rather impossible, to find a faultless character, the writer of a great man’s life will lay himself out in delineating his good qualities, and not dwell with pleasure, or an anxious diligence, on his foibles, out of a respectful tenderness to human nature, which unhappily is not capable of attaining absolute perfection.” * ;
* PLUTARCH. Cimon. διό init.
58 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
And with this little apology for myself I proceed to give the outline of my friend’s character.
He possessed those virtues which are so important in society, truth, probity, and honour, in the highest degree; with a frankness of temper yery uncommon, and a friendliness to those he loved and esteemed, which knew no bounds; not suspicious or captious in the least ; quick, indeed, in his resentment of real manifest injuries, but then again, as is natural to such tempers, of the utmost placability.
He had an ardent love of virtue, and the most sincere zeal for reli- gion ; and that the freest from all bigotry and all fanaticism that I have ever known. He venerated the civil constitution of his country, and was warmly attached to the church of England. Yet he was no party man, and was the sincerest advocate for toleration. It was not his manner to court the good opinion of our dissenters. But he had nothing of prejudice or ill-will towards them ; he conversed familiarly with such of them as came in his way, and had even a friendship with some of their more noted ministers,* who did not then glory in Socinian impieties, or indulge themselves in rancorous invectives against the established church. :
I know, indeed, that he spoke his sense of men and things, occa- sionally, with force, which in the language of some persons will be termed bigotry. And the truth is, he never indulged his candour so far as to treat all opinions and all characters alike. On the contrary, he held profane and licentious writers to be fit objects of public reproof; and though civil penalties should not be applied to the coercion of mistaken, or even to a certain degree of hurtful, opinions, yet literary chastisement, he thought, should ; an equal acceptance of all beg the ready way to introduce scepticism under the specious name of liberality, or rather irreligion itself under the mask of charity. And if this zeal may be abused, as without doubt every thing may at most, he had only to answer for that abuse; the use itself being surely unquestionable, if there be truth or meaning in the apostle’s aphorism, that ‘it is always good to be zealously affected in a good matter.’ But the reader, if he thinks fit, may see his own vindication of himself in the “ Apology for his View of Lord Boling- broke’s Philosophy.”
Indeed his conduct had been always uniform in this respect. Even in the year 1738, when the first volume of the “ Divine Legation”’ was published, he makes a full and frank declaration of his character. For in his dedication to the freethinkers, speaking of the advan- tage he should have, in that address, of not being called upon to disgrace himself or them by a style of adulation, he goes on thus :—
“ See a “ Collection of Letters to and from Dr. Doddridge, of Northampton ;’’ pub- lished by T. Stedman, M. A., vicar of St. Chad’s, Shrewsbury, 1790.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 59
“Not but I must own you have been managed, even by some of our order, with very singular complaisance. Whether it was that they affected the fame of moderation, or had a higher ambition for the honour of your good word, I know not; but I, who neither love your cause, nor fear the abilities that support it, while I preserve for your persons that justice and charity which my profession teaches to be due to all, can never be brought to think otherwise of your character, than as the despisers of the Master whom I serve, and as the implaca- ble enemies of that order to which I have the honour to belong; and as such, I should be tempted to glory in your censures, but would certainly refuse your commendations.”
Such were his early, as well as late, notions of candour. They who affect to push them still farther, may do well to reflect whether they be their own dupes, or the dupes of others ; I mean, whether they have indeed any principle themselves, or can be content to serve the views of those whose interest it is that men of principle speak and act as if they had not any.
His love of letters was extreme, and his disposition to countenance all those in whom he perceived any kind or degree of literary merit, the most prompt and generous; as appeared by his incessant recom- mendation of them to his great friends, when his own scanty patron- age, as he would oft and vehemently complain, denied him the means of rendering them any service himself.
If we consider him as a writer and a divine, it is not easy to find terms that will do justice to his merit.
His reading was various and extensive, and his discernment exqui- site. He saw and seized what was just and useful in every science which he cultivated, and in every book he read. The lumber and the refuse he shook off, and left to others. Perhaps no learned writer ever dealt less 1 ordinary quotation. Even the more familiar pas- sages, unless when cited by him as direct authorities, take an air and turn in his application of them, which makes them in a manner new. The same observation may be extended to his reasonings, which are either purely his own, or appear to be so, by his management of them. So that it seems a natural question which one* of his friends put to him, on the receipt of a volume of his sermons,—‘‘ How do you manage always to say something new upon old subjects, and always in an original manner ?”’
To say all in a word, he possessed, in an eminent degree, those two qualities of a great writer, sapere et fari ; I mean, superior sense, and the power of doing justice to it by a sound and manly eloquence. It was an ignorant cayil that charged him with a want of taste. The objection arose from the originality of his manner; but he wrote
* Mr. C. Yorke, in one of his letters, February 2nd, 1767.
60 THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
when he thought fit with the greatest purity and even elegance, not- withstanding his strength and energy, which frequently exclude those qualities.*
The character of his style is freedom and force united : as that of the style now in vogue is effort without either. Nobody understood the philosophy of grammar better; yet in the construction of his terms he was not nice, rather he was somewhat negligent. But this negligence has no ill effect in works of reasoning, and of length, where the writer’s mind is intent on the matter, and where a certain degree of irregularity gives the appearance of ease and spirit.
In his use of the terms themselves, especially of what are called ‘‘mixed modes,” and in the nice adjustment of the predicate to the subject, (in which the accuracy of style chiefly consists,) he was of all writers the most scrupulously exact. It was by this secret in his expression (so far as it depended on art and design) that he is never stiff or languid in his style, but everywhere free and nervous. It never flattens upon you, not being over-laboured in the phrase, or too general in the terms. There is the appearance of freedom, with the utmost energy and precision.
For the rest, the higher excellencies of his style were owing to the strength of his imagination, and a clear conception of his subject ; in other words, to his sublime genius.
Thus his style was properly his own, and what we call ‘ original.” Yet he did not disdain to draw what assistance he might from the best critics, among whom Quinctilian was his favourite.
By this union of art and nature he succeeded, of course, in all sorts of composition. But in one especially, the controversial, he was so much superior to himself, that barely to say he excelled in it would be a poor and scanty praise.
From his first entrance on theological studies, he had applied him- self with care to the reading of our best writers in controversy, such as Hooker, Chillingworth, and Locke; of whom he was so fond, that he had their works bound up in small detached pieces for the conve- nience of carrying them with him in his hand or pocket when he travelled or walked abroad by himself. Of these I have several in nly possession, which appear to have been much used. It is no wonder he should have this taste ; for besides that controversy was then in vogue, he disdained to oppose the enemies of religion in any other way than that of logical confutation ; and “against those,”’ to use his own words in a letter to me, ‘he had denounced eternal war, like Hannibal against Rome, at the altar.”
* Mr. Pope gives the true character of him, as a writer, where he says, that ‘‘ he had a genius equal to his pains, and a taste equal to his learning.’’—‘ Works,” vol. x. p- 291, 12mo. edition, 1754. 1,. exiii.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 61
Thus disciplined, he came with advantage to the use of his arms, when he found himself obliged, as he soon was, to take them up. Use and habit did the rest; so that he became consummate in this mode of writing; and, at the same time, original. For to the authority of Hooker, the acuteness of Chillingworth, and the per- spicuity of Locke, he added more than all their learning, together with a force of style, and poignancy of wit, of which we had hitherto seen no example in theological controversy.
With these talents and qualifications he was the terror of the infidel world while he lived, and will be their disgrace to future ages. Tis sublime reason, aided by his irresistible wit, drove them from their old fastnesses of logie and philosophy, and has forced them to take shelter in the thin cover of history and romance ; whence we now see them shoot their arrows, dipped in irony and badinage; to the annoyance, indeed, of some witless passengers ; but to the wary and well-appointed, who take a fancy to ramble into those paths, perfectly harmless and insignificant.
But when I mentioned his making war on our freethinking phi- losophers, let me be