Spenser, vol. ii. p. 36, as "the most sensible and ingenious of modern critics." He was a lover of his studies; and he probably was sincere, when he once told a friend of the literary antiquary Cole, that he would have chosen not to quit the university, for he loved retirement; and on that principle Cowley was his favourite poet, which he afterwards showed, by his singular edition of that poet. He was called, from the cloistered shades, to assume the honourable dignity of a Royal Tutor. Had he devoted his days to literature, he would have still enriched its stores. But he had other more supple and more serviceable qualifications. Most adroit was he in all the archery of controversy: he had the subtlety that can evade the aim of the assailant, and the slender dexterity, substituted for vigour, that struck when least expected. The subaltern genius of Hurd required to be animated by the heroic energy of Warburton; and the careless courage of the chief wanted one who could maintain the unguarded passages he left behind him in his progress.

Such, then, was WARBURTON, and such the quarrels of this great author. He was, through his literary life, an adventurer,

plan of criticism, which should unite the virtues of each of them. This experiment was made on the two greatest of our own poets - Shakespeare and Pope. Still (he adds, addressing Warburton) you went farther, by joining to those powers a perfect insight into human nature; and so ennobling the exercise of literary, by the justest moral censure, you have now, at length, advanced criticism, lo its full glory."

A perpetual intercourse of mutual adulation, animated the Sovereign and his viceroy, and, by mutual support, each obtained the same reward: two mitres crowned the greater and the minor critic. This intercourse was humorously detected by the lively author of "Confusion worse confounded."— "When the late Duke of R. (says he) kept wild beasts, it was a common diversion to make two of his bears drunk (not metaphorically with flattery, but literally with strong ale), and then daub them over with honey. It was excellent sport to see how lovingly (like a couple of critics) they would lick and claw one another," It is almost amazing to observe how Hurd, who naturally was of the most frigid temperament, and the most subdued feelings, warmed, heated, and blazed, in the progressive stages, "of that pageantry of praise spread over the Rev. Mr. Warburton, when the latter was advancing fast towards a Bishoprick," to use the words of Dr. Parr, a sagacious observer of man. However, notwithstanding the despotic mandates of our Pichrocole and his dapper minister, there were who did not fear to meet the greater bear, of the two so facetiously described above. And the author of "Confusion worse confounded" tells a familiar story, which will enliven the history of our great critic." One of the bears mentioned above happened to get loose, and was running along the street in which a tinker was gravely walking. The people all cried 'Tinker! tinker! beware of the bear!'-Upon this Magnano faced about, with great composure; and raising his staff, knocked down Bruin; then setting his arms a-kimbo, walked off very sedately; only saying-' Let the bear beware of the tinker'- which is now become a proverb in those parts,"-Confusion worse confounded, p. 75.

guided by that secret principle, which opened an immediate road to fame. By opposing the common sentiments of mankind, he awed and he commanded them; and by giving a new face to all things he surprised, by the appearances of discoveries. All this, so pleasing to his egotism, was not however fortunate for his ambition. To sustain an authority, which he had usurped; to substitute for the taste he wanted, a curious and dazzling erudition; and to maintain those reckless decisions which so often plunged him into perils, Warburton adopted his system of Literary Quarrels. These were the illegitimate means which raised a sudden celebrity; and which genius kept alive, as long as that genius lasted; Warburton suffered that literary calamity, too protracted a period of human life: he outlived himself and his fame. This great and original mind sacrificed all his genius to that secret principle we have endeavoured to develop-it was a self-immolation!

66

The learned SELDEN, in the curious little volume of his "Table-Talk," has delivered to posterity a precept for the learned, which they ought to wear, like the Jewish phylacteries, as a frontlet between their eyes." No man is the wiser for his Learning: it may administer matter to work in, or objects to work upon; but wit and wisdom are born with a man.-Sir THOMAS HANMER, who was well acquainted with Warburton, during their correspondence about Shakespeare, often said of him: "The only use he could find in Mr. Warburton was, starting the game; he was not to be trusted in running it down." A just discrimination! His fervid curiosity was absolutely creative; but his taste and his judgment, perpetually stretched out by his system, could not save him from even inglorious absurdities!

Warburton, it is probable, was not really the character he appears. It mortifies the lovers of genius to discover how a natural character may be thrown into a convulsed unnatural state, by some adopted system: it is this system, which carrying it, as it were, beyond itself, communicates a more than natural, but a self-destroying energy. All then becomes reversed! The arrogant and vituperative Warburton was only such in his assumed character; for, in still domestic life, he was the creature of benevolence, touched by generous passions. But in public life, the artificial, or the acquired character, prevails over the one which nature designed for us; and by that all public men, as well as authors, are usually judged by posterity.

POPE,

AND HIS MISCELLANEOUS QUARRELS.

POPE adopted a system of literary politics-collected, with extraordinary care, everything relative to his Quarrels-no politician ever studied to obtain his purposes by more oblique directions and intricate stratagems-some of his manœuvres-his systematic hostility not practised with impunity-his claim to his own Works contestedCIBBER'S facetious description of POPE's feelings, and WELSTED's elegant satire on his genius-DENNIS's account of POPE'S Introduction to him-his political prudence further discovered in the Collection of all the Pieces relative to the Dunciad, in which he employed SAVAGE-the THEOBALDIANS and the POPEIANS; an attack by a TheobaldianThe Dunciad ingeniously defended, for the grossness of its imagery, and its reproach of the poverty of the authors, supposed by POPE himself, with some curious specimens of literary personalities—the Literary Quarrel between AARON HILL and POPE distinguished for its romantic cast-a Narrative of the extraordinary transactions respecting the publication of POPE'S Letters; an example of Stratagem and Conspiracy, illustrative of his character.

POPE has proudly perpetuated the history of his Literary Quarrels; and he appears to have been among those authors, surely not forming the majority, who have delighted in, or have not been averse to provoke, hostility. He has registered the titles of every book, even to a single paper, or a copy of verses, in which their authors had committed treason against his poetical sovereignty. His ambition seemed gratified in heaping

'Pope collected these numerous literary libels with extraordinary care. He had them bound in volumes of all sizes; and a range of twelves, octavos, quartos, and folios, were marshalled in portentous order on his shelves. He wrote the names of the writers, with remarks on these Anonymiana. He prefixed to them this motto, from Job: "Behold, my desire is, that mine adversary had written a book: surely I would take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me." xxxi. 35. Ruffhead, who wrote Pope's Life under the eye of Warburton, who revised every sheet of the volume, and suffered this mere lawyer and singularly wretched critic to write on, with far inferior taste to his own-offered "the entire collection to any public library or museum, whose search is after curiosities, and may be desirous of enriching their common treasure with it: it will be freely at the service of that which asks first." Did no one accept the invitation? As this was written in 1769, it is evidently pointed towards the British Museum; but there I have not heard of it. This collection must have contained much of the Secret Memoirs of Grub-street: it was always a fountain whence those "waters of bitterness," the notes in the Dunciad, were readily supplied. It would be curious to discover by what stratagem Pope obtained all that secret intelligence about his Dunces, with which he has burthened posterity, for his own particular gratification. Arbuthnot, it is said, wrote some notes merely literary; but Savage, and still humbler agents, served him as his Espions de Police. He pensioned Savage to his last day, and never deserted him. In the account of" the phantom Moore," Scriblerus appeals to Savage to authenticate some story. One curious instance of the fruits of Savage's researches in this way he has himself

these trophies to his genius, while his meaner passions could compile one of the most voluminous of the scandalous chronicles of literature. We are mortified on discovering so fine a genius in the text, humbling itself through all the depravity of a commentary full of spleen, and not without the fictions of satire. The unhappy influence his Literary Quarrels had on this great poet's life remains to be traced. He adopted a system of literary politics, abounding with stratagems, conspiracies, manœuvres, and factions.

Pope's literary quarrels were the wars of his poetical ambition, more perhaps than of the petulance and strong irritability of his character. They were some of the artifices he adopted, from the peculiarity of his situation.

Thrown out of the active classes of society, from a variety of causes, sufficiently known', concentrating his passions into a

preserved, in his memoirs of "An Author to be Let, by Iscariot Hackney." This portrait of a perfect Town-Author" is not deficient in spirit: the hero was one Roome, a man only celebrated in the Dunciad for his "funereal frown." But it is uncertain whether this fellow had really so dismal a countenance; for the epithet was borrowed from his profession, being the son of an undertaker! Such is the nature of some satire! Dr. Warton is astonished, or mortified, for he knew not which, to see the pains and patience of Pope and his friends in compiling the Notes to the Dunciad, to trace out the lives and works of such paltry and forgotten scribblers. "It is like walking through the darkest alleys in the dirtiest part of St. Giles's." Very true! But may we not be allowed to detect the vanities of human nature at St. Giles's as well as St. James's? Authors, however obscure, are always an amusing race to authors. The greatest find their own passions in the least, though distorted, or cramped in too small a compass.

It is doubtless from Pope's great anxiety for his own literary celebrity that we have been furnished with so complete a knowledge of the grotesque groups in the Dunciad. "Give me a shilling," said Swift facetiously, "and I will insure you that posterity shall never know one single enemy, excepting those whose memory you have preserved." A very useful hint for a man of genius to leave his wretched assailants to dissolve away in their own weakness. But Pope, having written a Dunciad, by accompanying it with a commentary, took the only method to interest posterity. He felt that Boileau's satires on bad authors are liked only in the degree the objects alluded to are known. But he loved too much the subject for its own sake. He abused the powers genius had conferred on him, as other imperial sovereigns have done. It is said that he kept the whole kingdom in awe of him. In the frenzy and prodigality of vanity," he exclaimed

Tacitus Gordon said of him, thât Pope seemed to persuade the nation that all genius and ability were confined to him and his friends.

I

Pope, in his energetic Letter to Lord HERVEY, that "master-piece of invective," says Warton, which Tyers tells us he kept long back from publishing, at the desire of Queen Caroline, who was fearful her counsellor would become insignificant in the public esteem, and at last in her own, such was the power his genius exercised ;-has pointed out one of these causes. It describes himself as

solitary one, his retired life was passed in the contemplation of his own literary greatness. Reviewing the past, and anticipating the future, he felt he was creating a new era in our Literature, an event which does not always occur in a century; but eager to secure present celebrity, with the victory obtained in the open field, he combined the intrigues of the cabinet: thus, while he was exerting great means, he practised little artifices. No politician studied to obtain his purposes by more oblique directions, or with more intricate stratagems; and Pope was at once the lion and the fox of Machiavel. A book might be written on the Stratagems of Literature, as Frontinus has composed one on War, and among its subtilest heroes we might place this great poet.

To keep his name alive before the public, was one of his early plans. When he published his "Essay on Criticism," anonymously, the young and impatient poet was mortified with the inertion of public curiosity: he was almost in despair. Twice, perhaps oftener, Pope attacked Pope2; and he frequently concealed himself under the names of others, for some particular design. Not to point out his dark familiar Scriblerus, always at hand for all purposes, he made use of the names of several of his friends. When he employed SAVAGE in "a collection of all the pieces, in verse and prose, published on occasion of the Dunciad," he subscribed his name to an admirable dedication to Lord Middlesex, where he minutely relates the whole history of

a private person under penal laws, and many other disadvantages, not for want of honesty or conscience; yet it is by these alone I have hitherto lived excluded from all posts of profit or trust. I can interfere with the views of no man."

I

The first publisher of the Essay on Criticism must have been a Mr. Lewis, a Catholic bookseller in Covent-garden; for, from a descendant of this Lewis, I heard that Pope, after publication, came every day, persecuting with anxious inquiries the cold impenetrable bookseller, who, as the poem lay uncalled for, saw nothing but vexatious importunities in a troublesome youth. One day, Pope, after nearly a month's publication, entered, and in despair tied up a number of the poems, which he addressed to several who had a reputation in town, as judges of poetry. The scheme succeeded, and the poem, having reached its proper circle, soon got into request.

He was the author of "The Key to the Lock," written to show that " The Rape of the Lock" was a political poem, designed to ridicule the Barrier Treaty. Its innocent extravagance could only have been designed to increase attention to a work, which hardly required any such artifice. In the same spirit he composed the Guardian, in which Philips's Pastorals were insidiously preferred to his own. Pope sent this ironical, panegyrical criticism on Phillips anonymously to the Guardian, and Steele not perceiving the drift, hesitated to publish it, till Pope advised it. Addison detected it. I doubt whether we have discovered all the supercheries of this kind. After writing the finest works of genius, he was busily employed in attracting the public attention to them. In the antithesis of his character, he was so great and so little! But he knew mankind! and present fame was the great business of his life.