INCLUDING AN ILLUSTRATION OF
HIS LITERARY CHARACTER
The name of Warburton more familiar to us than his Works--declared
to be "a Colossus" by a Warburtonian, who afterwards shrinks the
image into "a human size"--Lowth's caustic retort on his
Attorneyship--motives for the change to Divinity--his first
literary mischances--Warburton and his Welsh Prophet--his
Dedications--his mean flatteries--his taste more struck by the
monstrous than the beautiful--the effects of his opposite
studies--the SECRET PRINCIPLE which conducted Warburton through all
his Works--the _curious_ argument of his Alliance between Church and
State--the _bold_ paradox of his Divine Legation--the demonstration
ends in a conjecture--Warburton lost in the labyrinth he had
ingeniously constructed--confesses the harassed state of his
mind--attacked by Infidels and Christians--his SECRET PRINCIPLE
turns the poetical narrative of AEneas into the Eleusinian
Mysteries--Hurd attacks Jortin; his Attic irony translated into
plain English--Warburton's paradox on Eloquence; his levity of ideas
renders his sincerity suspected--Leland refutes the whimsical
paradox--Hurd attacks Leland--Leland's noble triumph--Warburton's
SECRET PRINCIPLE operating in Modern Literature: on Pope's Essay on
Man--Lord Bolingbroke the author of the Essay--Pope received
Warburton as his tutelary genius--Warburton's systematic treatment
of his friends and rival editors--his literary artifices and little
intrigues--his Shakspeare--the whimsical labours of Warburton on
Shakspeare annihilated by Edwards's "Canons of Criticism"--Warburton
and Johnson--Edwards and Warburton's mutual attacks--the concealed
motive of his edition of Shakspeare avowed in his justification--his
SECRET PRINCIPLE further displayed in Pope's Works--attacks Akenside;
Dyson's generous defence--correct Ridicule is a test of Truth,
illustrated by a well-known case--Warburton a literary
revolutionist; aimed to be a perpetual dictator--the ambiguous
tendency of his speculations--the Warburtonian School supported by
the most licentious principles--specimens of its peculiar style--the
use to which Warburton applied the Dunciad--his party: attentive to
raise recruits--the active and subtle Hurd--his extreme
sycophancy--Warburton, to maintain his usurped authority, adopted
his system of literary quarrels.
The name of WARBURTON is more familiar to us than his works: thus was
it early,[141] thus it continues, and thus it will be with posterity!
The cause may be worth our inquiry. Nor is there, in the whole compass
of our literary history, a character more instructive for its
greatness and its failures; none more adapted to excite our curiosity,
and which can more completely gratify it.
Of great characters, whose actions are well known, and of those who,
whatever claim they may have to distinction, are not so, ARISTOTLE has
delivered a precept with his accustomed sagacity. If _Achilles_, says
the Stagirite, be the subject of our inquiries, since all know what he
has done, we are simply to indicate his actions, without stopping to
detail; but this would not serve for _Critias_; for whatever relates
to him must be fully told, since he is known to few;[142]--a critical
precept, which ought to be frequently applied in the composition of
this work.
The history of Warburton is now well known; the facts lie dispersed in
the chronological biographer;[143] but the secret connexion which
exists between them, if there shall be found to be any, has not yet
been brought out; and it is my business to press these together; hence
to demonstrate principles, or to deduce inferences.
The literary fame of Warburton was a portentous meteor: it seemed
unconnected with the whole planetary system through which it rolled,
and it was imagined to be darting amid new creations, as the tail of
each hypothesis blazed with idle fancies.[144] Such extraordinary
natures cannot be looked on with calm admiration, nor common
hostility; all is the tumult of wonder about such a man; and his
adversaries, as well as his friends, though differently affected, are
often overcome by the same astonishment.
To a Warburtonian, the object of his worship looks indeed of colossal
magnitude, in the glare thrown about that hallowed spot; nor is the
divinity of common stature; but the light which makes him appear so
great, must not be suffered to conceal from us the real standard by
which only his greatness can be determined:[145] even literary
enthusiasm, delightful to all generous tempers, may be too prodigal of
its splendours, wasting itself while it shines; but truth remains
behind! Truth, which, like the asbestos, is still unconsumed and
unaltered amidst these glowing fires.
The genius of Warburton has called forth two remarkable anonymous
criticisms--in one, all that the most splendid eloquence can bring to
bear against this chief and his adherents;[146] and in the other, all
that taste, warmed by a spark of Warburtonian fire, can discriminate
in an impartial decision.[147] Mine is a colder and less grateful
task. I am but a historian! I have to creep along in the darkness of
human events, to lay my hand cautiously on truths so difficult to
touch, and which either the panegyrist or the writer of an invective
cover over, and throw aside into corners.
Much of the moral, and something too of the physical dispositions of
the man enter into the literary character; and, moreover, there are
localities--the place where he resides, the circumstances which arise,
and the habits he contracts; to all these the excellences and the
defects of some of our great literary characters may often be traced.
With this clue we may thread our way through the labyrinth of Genius.
Warburton long resided in an obscure provincial town, the articled
clerk of a country attorney,[148] and then an unsuccessful practising
one. He seems, too, once to have figured as "a wine-merchant in the
Borough," and rose into notice as "the orator of a disputing club;"
but, in all his shapes, still keen in literary pursuits, without
literary connexions; struggling with all the defects of a desultory
and self-taught education, but of a bold aspiring character, he
rejected, either in pride or in despair, his little trades, and took
Deacon's orders--to exchange a profession, unfavourable to continuity
of study, for another more propitious to its indulgence.[149] In a
word, he set off as a literary adventurer, who was to win his way by
earning it from patronage.
His first mischances were not of a nature to call forth that
intrepidity which afterwards hardened into the leading feature of his
character. Few great authors have begun their race with less
auspicious omens, though an extraordinary event in the life of an
author happened to Warburton--he had secured a patron before he was an
author.
The first publication of his which we know, was his "Translations in
Prose and Verse from Roman Poets, Orators, and Historians." 1724. He
was then about twenty-five years of age. The fine forms of classic
beauty could never be cast in so rough a mould as his prose; and his
turgid unmusical verses betrayed qualities of mind incompatible with
the delicacy of poetry. Four years afterwards he repeated another
bolder attempt, in his "Critical and Philosophical Inquiry into the
Causes of Prodigies and Miracles." After this publication, I wonder
Warburton was ever suspected of infidelity or even scepticism.[150] So
radically deficient in Warburton was that fine internal feeling which
we call taste, that through his early writings he acquired not one
solitary charm of diction,[151] and scarcely betrayed, amid his
impurity of taste, that nerve and spirit which afterwards crushed all
rival force. His translations _in imitation of Milton's style_ betray
his utter want of ear and imagination. He attempted to suppress both
these works during his lifetime.
When these unlucky productions were republished by Dr. Parr, the
_Dedications_ were not forgotten; they were both addressed to the same
opulent baronet, not omitting "the virtues" of his lady the Countess
of Sunderland, whose marriage he calls "so divine a union." Warburton
had shown no want of judgment in the choice of his patrons; for they
had more than one living in their gift--and perhaps, knowing his
patrons, none in the dedications themselves. They had, however, this
absurdity, that in freely exposing the servile practices of
dedicators, the writer was himself indulging in that luxurious sin,
which he so forcibly terms "Public Prostitution." This early
management betrays no equivocal symptoms of that traffic in
_Dedications_, of which he has been so severely accused,[152] and of
that paradoxical turn and hardy effrontery which distinguished his
after-life. These dedications led to preferment, and thus hardily was
laid the foundation-stone of his aspiring fortunes.
Till his thirtieth year, Warburton evinced a depraved taste, but a
craving appetite for knowledge. His mind was constituted to be more
struck by the Monstrous than the Beautiful, much like that Sicilian
prince who furnished his villa with the most hideous figures
imaginable:[153] the delight resulting from harmonious and delicate
forms raised emotions of too weak a nature to move his obliquity of
taste; roused, however, by the surprise excited by colossal ugliness.
The discovery of his intellectual tastes, at this obscure period of
his life, besides in those works we have noticed, is confirmed by one
of the most untoward accidents which ever happened to a literary man;
it was the chance-discovery of a letter he had written to one of the
heroes of the Dunciad, forty years before. At the time that letter
was written, his literary connexions were formed with second-rate
authors; he was in strict intimacy with Concanen and Theobald, and
other "ingenious gentlemen who made up our last night's conversation,"
as he expresses himself.[154] This letter is full of the heresies of
taste: one of the most anomalous is the comment on that well-known
passage in Shakspeare, on "the genius and the mortal instruments;"
Warburton's is a miraculous specimen of fantastical sagacity and
critical delirium, or the art of discovering meanings never meant, and
of illustrations the author could never have known. Warburton declares
to "the ingenious gentlemen," (whom afterwards with a Pharaoh's heart
he hanged by dozens to posterity in the "Dunciad,") that "Pope
borrowed for want of genius;" that poet, who, when the day arrived, he
was to comment on as the first of poets! His insulting criticisms on
the popular writings of Addison,--his contempt for what Young calls
"sweet elegant Virgilian prose,"--show how utterly insensible he was
to that classical taste in which Addison had constructed his
materials. But he who could not taste the delicacy of Addison, it may
be imagined might be in raptures with the rant of Lee. There is an
unerring principle in the false sublime: it seems to be governed by
laws, though they are not ours; and we know what it will like, that
is, we know what it will mistake for what ought not to be liked, as
surely as we can anticipate what will delight correct taste. Warburton
has pronounced one of the raving passages of poor Nat "to contain not
only the most sublime, but the most judicious imagery that poetry
could conceive or paint." JOSEPH WARTON, who indignantly rejects it
from his edition of Pope, asserts that "we have not in our language a
more striking example of true turgid expression, and genuine fustian
and bombast."[155] Yet such was the man whom ill-fortune (for the
public at least) had chosen to become the commentator of our greater
poets! Again Churchill throws light on our character:--
He, with an all-sufficient air
Places himself in the critic's chair,
And wrote, to advance his Maker's praise,
Comments on rhymes, and notes on plays--
A judge of genius, though, confest,
With not one spark of genius blest:
Among the first of critics placed,
Though free from every taint of taste.
Not encouraged by the reception his first literary efforts received,
but having obtained some preferment from his patron, we now come to a
critical point in his life. He retreated from the world, and, during a
seclusion of near twenty years, persevered in uninterrupted studies.
The force of his character placed him in the first order of thinking
beings. This resolution no more to court the world for literary
favours, but to command it by hardy preparation for mighty labours,
displays a noble retention of the appetite for fame; Warburton scorned
to be a scribbler!
Had this great man journalised his readings, as Gibbon has done, we
should perhaps be more astonished at his miscellaneous pursuits. He
read everything, and, I suspect, with little distinction, and equal
delight.[156] Curiosity, even to its delirium, was his first passion;
which produced those new systems of hypothetical reasoning by which he
startled the world; and his efforts to save his most ingenious
theories from absurdity resembled, to use his own emphatic words
applied to the philosophy of Leibnitz, "a contrivance against
Fatalism," for though his genius has given a value to the wildest
paradoxes, paradoxes they remain.
But if Warburton read so much, it was not to enforce opinions already
furnished to his hands, or with cold scepticism to reject them,
leaving the reader in despair. He read that he might write what no one
else had written, and which at least required to be refuted before it
was condemned. He hit upon a SECRET PRINCIPLE, which prevails through
all his works, and this was INVENTION; a talent, indeed, somewhat
dangerous to introduce in researches where Truth, and not Fancy, was
to be addressed. But even with all this originality he was not free
from imitation, and has even been accused of borrowing largely without
hinting at his obligations. He had certainly one favourite model
before him: Warburton has delineated the portrait of a certain author
with inimitable minuteness, while he caught its general effect; we
feel that the artist, in tracing the resemblance of another, is
inspired by all the flattery of a self-painter--he perceived the
kindred features, and he loved them!
This author was BAYLE! And I am unfolding the character of Warburton,
in copying the very original portrait:--
"Mr. Bayle is of a quite different character from these Italian
sophists: a writer, whose strength and clearness of _reasoning_ can be
equalled only by the gaiety, easiness, and delicacy of his _wit_;
_who, pervading human nature with a glance, STRUCK INTO THE PROVINCE
OF PARADOX, as an exercise for the restless vigour of his mind_: who,
with a soul superior to the sharpest attacks of fortune, and a heart
practised to the best philosophy, had _not yet enough of real
greatness to overcome that last foible of superior geniuses_, the
temptation of honour, which the ACADEMIC EXERCISE OF WIT is conceived
to bring to its professors."[157]
Here, then, we discover the SECRET PRINCIPLE which conducted Warburton
through all his works, although of the most opposite natures. I do not
give this as an opinion to be discussed, but as a fact to be
demonstrated.
The faculties so eminent in Bayle were equally so in Warburton. In his
early studies he had particularly applied himself to logic; and was
not only a vigorous reasoner, but one practised in all the _finesse_
of dialectics. He had wit, fertile indeed, rather than delicate; and a
vast body of erudition, collected in the uninterrupted studies of
twenty years. But it was the SECRET PRINCIPLE, or, as he calls it,
"_the Academic exercise of Wit_," on an enlarged system, which carried
him so far in the new world of INVENTION he was creating.
This was a new characteristic of investigation; it led him on to
pursue his profounder inquiries beyond the clouds of antiquity; for
what he could not _discover_, he CONJECTURED and ASSERTED. Objects,
which in the hands of other men were merely matters resting on
authentic researches, now received the stamp and lustre of original
invention. Nothing was to be seen in the state in which others had
viewed it; the hardiest paradoxes served his purpose best, and
this licentious principle produced unlooked-for discoveries. He
humoured his taste, always wild and unchastised, in search of the
monstrous and the extravagant; and, being a wit, he delighted in
finding resemblances in objects which to more regulated minds had no
similarity whatever. _Wit_ may exercise its ingenuity as much in
combining _things_ unconnected with each other, as in its odd
assemblage of _ideas_; and Warburton, as a literary antiquary,
proved to be as witty in his combinations as BUTLER and CONGREVE
in their comic images. As this principle took full possession of
the mind of this man of genius, the practice became so familiar,
that it is possible he might at times have been credulous enough
to have confided in his own reveries. As he forcibly expressed
himself on one of his adversaries, Dr. STEBBING, "Thus it is to
have to do with a head whose _sense is all run to system_." "His
Academic Wit" now sported amid whimsical theories, pursued bold
but inconclusive arguments, marked out subtile distinctions, and
discovered incongruous resemblances; but they were maintained by an
imposing air of conviction, furnished with the most prodigal
erudition, and they struck out many ingenious combinations. The
importance or the curiosity of the topics awed or delighted his
readers; the principle, however licentious, by the surprise it
raised, seduced the lovers of novelties. Father HARDOUIN had
studied as hard as Warburton, rose as early, and retired to rest
as late, and the obliquity of his intellect resembled that of
Warburton--but he was a far inferior genius; he only discovered
that the classical works of antiquity, the finest compositions
of the human mind, in ages of its utmost refinement, had been
composed by the droning monks of the middle ages; a discovery which
only surprised by its tasteless absurdity--but the absurdities
of Warburton had more dignity, were more delightful, and more
dangerous: they existed, as it were, in a state of illusion, but
illusion which required as much genius and learning as his own
to dissipate. His spells were to be disturbed only by a magician,
great as himself. Conducted by this solitary principle, Warburton
undertook, as it were, a magical voyage into antiquity. He passed
over the ocean of time, sailing amid rocks, and half lost on
quicksands; but he never failed to raise up some _terra incognita_;
or point at some scene of the _Fata Morgana_, some earthly spot,
painted in the heaven one knows not how.
In this secret principle of resolving to _invent_ what no other had
before conceived, by means of _conjecture_ and _assertion_, and of
maintaining his theories with all the pride of a sophist, and all the
fierceness of an inquisitor, we have the key to all the contests by
which this great mind so long supported his literary usurpations.
The first step the giant took showed the mightiness of his stride. His
first great work was the famous "Alliance between Church and State."
It surprised the world, who saw the most important subject depending
on a mere _curious_ argument, which, like all political theories, was
liable to be overthrown by writers of opposite principles.[158] The
term "Alliance" seemed to the dissenters to infer that the _Church_
was an independent power, forming a contract with the _State_, and not
acknowledging that it is only an integral part, like that of the
_army_ or the _navy_.[159] Warburton had not probably decided, at that
time, on the principle of ecclesiastical power: whether it was
paramount by its divine origin, as one party asserted; or whether, as
the new philosophers, Hobbes, Selden, and others, insisted, the
spiritual was secondary to the civil power.[160]
The intrepidity of this vast genius appears in the plan of his greater
work. The omission of a future state of reward and punishment, in the
Mosaic writings, was perpetually urged as a proof that the mission was
not of divine origin: the ablest defenders strained at obscure or
figurative passages, to force unsatisfactory inferences; but they were
looking after what could not be found. Warburton at once boldly
acknowledged it was not there; at once adopted all the objections of
the infidels: and roused the curiosity of both parties by the hardy
assertion, that this very _omission_ was a _demonstration_ of its
divine origin.[161]
The first idea of this new project was bold and delightful, and the
plan magnificent. Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity, the three great
religions of mankind, were to be marshalled in all their pomp, and
their awe, and their mystery. But the procession changed to a battle!
To maintain one great paradox, he was branching out into innumerable
ones. This great work was never concluded: the author wearied himself,
without, however, wearying his readers; and, as his volumes appeared,
he was still referring to his argument, "as far as it is yet
advanced." The _demonstration_ appeared in great danger of ending in a
_conjecture_; and this work, always beginning and never ending, proved
to be the glory and misery of his life.[162] In perpetual conflict
with those numerous adversaries it roused, Warburton often shifted
his ground, and broke into so many divisions, that when he cried out,
Victory! his scattered forces seemed rather to be in flight than in
pursuit.[163]
The same SECRET PRINCIPLE led him to turn the poetical narrative of
AEneas in the infernal regions, an episode evidently imitated by Virgil
from his Grecian master, into a minute description of the initiation
into the Eleusinian Mysteries. A notion so perfectly new was at least
worth a commonplace truth. Was it not delightful to have so many
particulars detailed of a secret transaction, which even its
contemporaries of two thousand years ago did not presume to know
anything about? Father Hardouin seems to have opened the way for
Warburton, since he had discovered that the whole AEneid was an
allegorical voyage of St. Peter to Rome! When Jortin, in one of his
"Six Dissertations," modestly illustrated Virgil by an interpretation
inconsistent with Warburton's strange discovery, it produced a
memorable quarrel. Then Hurd, the future shield, scarcely the sword,
of Warburton, made his first sally; a dapper, subtle, and cold-blooded
champion, who could dexterously turn about the polished weapon of
irony.[164] So much our _Railleur_ admired the volume of Jortin, that
he favoured him with "A Seventh Dissertation, addressed to the Author
of the Sixth, on the Delicacy of Friendship," one of the most
malicious, but the keenest pieces of irony. It served as the
foundation of a new School of Criticism, in which the arrogance of the
master was to be supported by the pupil's contempt of men often his
superiors. To interpret Virgil differently from the modern Stagirite,
was, by the aggravating art of the ridiculer, to be considered as the
violation of a moral feeling.[165] Jortin bore the slow torture and
the teasing of Hurd's dissecting-knife in dignified silence.
At length a rising genius demonstrated how Virgil could not have
described the Eleusinian Mysteries in the sixth book of the AEneid. One
blow from the arm of Gibbon shivered the allegorical fairy palace into
glittering fragments.[166]
When the sceptical Middleton, in his "Essay on the Gift of Tongues,"
pretended to think that "an inspired language would be perfect in its
kind, with all the purity of Plato and the eloquence of Cicero," and
then asserted that "the style of the New Testament was utterly rude
and barbarous, and abounding with every fault that can possibly deform
a language," Warburton, as was his custom, instantly acquiesced; but
hardily maintained that "_this very barbarism was one certain mark of
a divine original_."[167]--The curious may follow his subtile argument
in his "Doctrine of Grace;" but, in delivering this paradox, he struck
at the fundamental principles of eloquence: he dilated on all the
abuses of that human art. It was precisely his utter want of taste
which afforded him so copious an argument; for he asserted that the
principles of eloquence were arbitrary and chimerical, and its various
modes "mostly fantastical;" and that, consequently, there was no such
thing as a good taste,[168] except what the _consent of the learned_
had made; an expression borrowed from Quintilian. A plausible and a
consolatory argument for the greater part of mankind! It, however,
roused the indignation of Leland, the eloquent translator of
Demosthenes, and the rhetorical professor at Trinity College, in
Dublin, who has nobly defended the cause of classical taste and
feeling by profounder principles. His classic anger produced his
"Dissertation on the Principles of Human Eloquence;" a volume so much
esteemed that it is still reprinted. Leland refuted the whimsical
paradox, yet complimented Warburton, who, "with the spirit and energy
of an ancient orator, was writing against eloquence," while he showed
that the style of the New Testament was defensible on surer grounds.
Hurd, who had fleshed his polished weapon on poor Jortin, and had been
received into the arms of the hero under whom he now fought,
adventured to cast his javelin at Leland: it was dipped in the cold
poison of contempt and petulance. It struck, but did not canker,
leaves that were immortal.[169] Leland, with the native warmth of his
soil, could not resist the gratification of a reply; but the nobler
part of the triumph was, the assistance he lent to the circulation of
Hurd's letter, by reprinting it with his own reply, to accompany a
new edition of his "Dissertation on Eloquence."[170]
We now pursue the SECRET PRINCIPLE, operating on lighter topics; when,
turning commentator, with the same originality as when an author, his
character as a literary adventurer is still more prominent, extorting
double senses, discovering the most fantastical allusions, and making
men of genius but of confined reading, learned, with all the lumber of
his own unwieldy erudition.
When the German professor CROUSAZ published a rigid examen of the
doctrines in POPE'S "Essay on Man," Warburton volunteered a defence of
Pope. Some years before, it appears that Warburton himself, in a
literary club at Newark, had produced a dissertation against those
very doctrines! where he asserted that "the Essay was collected from
the worst passages of the worst authors." This probably occurred at
the time he declared that Pope had no genius! BOLINGBROKE really WROTE
the "Essay on Man," which Pope _versified_.[171] His principles may be
often objectionable; but those who only read this fine philosophical
poem for its condensed verse, its imagery, and its generous
sentiments, will run no danger from a metaphysical system they will
not care to comprehend.
But this serves not as an apology for Warburton, who now undertook an
elaborate defence of what he had himself condemned, and for which
purpose he has most unjustly depressed Crousaz--an able logician, and
a writer ardent in the cause of religion. This commentary on the
"Essay on Man," then, looks much like the work of a sophist and an
adventurer! Pope, who was now alarmed at the tendency of some of those
principles he had so innocently versified, received Warburton as his
tutelary genius. A mere poet was soon dazzled by the sorcery of
erudition; and he himself, having nothing of that kind of learning,
believed Warburton to be the Scaliger of the age, for his gratitude
far exceeded his knowledge.[172] The poet died in this delusion: he
consigned his immortal works to the mercy of a ridiculous commentary
and a tasteless commentator, whose labours have cost so much pains to
subsequent editors to remove. Yet from this moment we date the worldly
fortunes of Warburton.--Pope presented him with the entire property of
his works; introduced him to a blind and obedient patron, who bestowed
on him a rich wife, by whom he secured a fine mansion; till at
length, the mitre crowned his last ambition. Such was the large
chapter of accidents in Warburton's life!
There appears in Warburton's conduct respecting the editions of the
great poets which he afterwards published, something systematic; he
treated the several editors of those very poets, THEOBALD, HANMER,
and GREY, who were his friends, with the same odd sort of kindness:
when he was unknown to the world, he cheerfully contributed to all
their labours, and afterwards abused them with the liveliest
severity.[173] It is probable that he had himself projected these
editions as a source of profit, but had contributed to the more
advanced labours of his rival editors, merely as specimens of his
talent, that the public might hereafter be thus prepared for his
own more perfect commentaries.
Warburton employed no little art[174] to excite the public curiosity
respecting his future Shakspeare: he liberally presented Dr. BIRCH
with his MS. notes for that great work the "General Dictionary," no
doubt as the prelude of his after-celebrated edition. Birch was here
only a dupe: he escaped, unlike Theobald, Hanmer, and Grey, from being
overwhelmed with ridicule and contempt. When these extraordinary
specimens of emendatory and illustrative criticism appeared in the
"General Dictionary," with general readers they excited all the
astonishment of perfect novelty. It must have occurred to them, that
no one as yet had understood Shakspeare; and, indeed, that it required
no less erudition than that of the new luminary now rising in the
critical horizon to display the amazing erudition of this most
recondite poet. Conjectural criticism not only changed the words but
the thoughts of the author; perverse interpretations of plain matters.
Many a striking passage was wrested into a new meaning: plain words
were subtilised to remove conceits; here one line was rejected, and
there an interpolation, inspired alone by critical sagacity, pretended
to restore a lost one; and finally, a source of knowledge was opened
in the notes, on subjects which no other critic suspected could, by
any ingenuity, stand connected with Shakspeare's text.
At length the memorable edition appeared: all the world knows its
chimeras.[175] One of its most remarkable results was the production
of that work, which annihilated the whimsical labours of Warburton,
Edwards's "Canons of Criticism," one of those successful facetious
criticisms which enliven our literary history. Johnson, awed by the
learning of Warburton, and warmed by a personal feeling for a great
genius who had condescended to encourage his first critical labour,
grudgingly bestows a moderated praise on this exquisite satire, which
he characterises for "its airy petulance, suitable enough to the
levity of the controversy." He compared this attack "to a fly, which
may sting and tease a horse, but yet the horse is the nobler
animal."[176] Among the prejudices of criticism, is one which hinders
us from relishing a masterly performance, when it ridicules a
favourite author; but to us, mere historians, truth will always
prevail over literary favouritism. The work of Edwards effected its
purpose, that of "laughing down Warburton to his proper rank and
character."[177]
Warburton designates himself as "a critic by profession;" and tells
us, he gave this edition "to deter the _unlearned writer_ from
wantonly trifling with an art he is a stranger to, at the expense of
the integrity of the text of established authors." Edwards has placed
a N.B. on this declaration:--"A writer may properly be called
_unlearned_, who, notwithstanding all his other knowledge, does not
understand the subject which he writes upon." But the most dogmatical
absurdity was Warburton's declaration, that it was once his design to
have given "a body of canons for criticism, drawn out in form, with a
glossary;" and further he informs the reader, that though this has not
been done by him, if the reader will take the trouble, he may supply
himself, as these canons of criticism lie scattered in the course of
the notes. This idea was seized on with infinite humour by Edwards,
who, from these very notes, has framed a set of "Canons of Criticism,"
as ridiculous as possible, but every one illustrated by authentic
examples, drawn from the labours of our new Stagirite.[178]
At length, when the public had decided on the fact of Warburton's
edition, it was confessed that the editor's design had never been to
explain Shakspeare! and that he was even conscious he had frequently
imputed to the poet meanings which he never thought! Our critic's
great object was to display his own learning! Warburton wrote for
Warburton, and not for Shakspeare! and the literary imposture almost
rivals the confessions of Lander or Psalmanazar!
The same SECRET PRINCIPLE was pursued in his absurd edition of Pope.
He formed an unbroken Commentary on the "Essay on Criticism," to show
that that admirable collection of precepts had been constructed by a
systematical method, which it is well known the poet never designed;
and the same instruments of torture were here used as in the "Essay on
Man," to reconcile a system of fatalism to the doctrines of
Revelation.[179] Warton had to remove the incumbrance of his
Commentaries on Pope, while a most laborious confederacy zealously
performed the same task to relieve Shakspeare. Thus Warburton pursued
ONE SECRET PRINCIPLE in all his labours; thus he raised edifices which
could not be securely inhabited, and were only impediments in the
roadway; and these works are now known by the labours of those who
have exerted their skill in laying them in ruins.
Warburton was probably aware that the SECRET PRINCIPLE which regulated
his public opinions might lay him open, at numerous points, to the
strokes of ridicule. It is a weapon which every one is willing to use,
but which seems to terrify every one when it is pointed against
themselves. There is no party or sect which have not employed it in
their most serious controversies: the grave part of mankind protest
against it, often at the moment they have been directing it for their
own purpose. And the inquiry, whether ridicule be a test of truth, is
one of the large controversies in our own literature. It was opened by
Lord Shaftesbury, and zealously maintained by his school. Akenside, in
a note to his celebrated poem, asserts the efficacy of ridicule as a
test of truth: Lord Kaimes had just done the same. Warburton levelled
his piece at the lord in the bush-fighting of a note; but came down in
the open field with a full discharge of his artillery on the luckless
bard.[180]
Warburton designates Akenside under the sneering appellative of "The
Poet," and alluding to his "sublime account" of the use of ridicule,
insultingly reminds him of "his Master," Shaftesbury, and of that
school which made morality an object of taste, shrewdly hinting that
Akenside was "a man of taste;" a new term, as we are to infer from
Warburton, for "a Deist;" or, as Akenside had alluded to Spinoza, he
might be something worse. The great critic loudly protested against
the practice of ridicule; but, in attacking its advocate, he is
himself an evidence of its efficacy, by keenly ridiculing "the Poet"
and his opinions. Dyson, the patron of Akenside, nobly stepped
forwards to rescue his Eagle, panting in the tremendous gripe of the
critical Lion. His defence of Akenside is an argumentative piece of
criticism on the nature of ridicule, curious, but wanting the graces
of the genius who inspired it.[181]
I shall stop one moment, since it falls into our subject, to record
this great literary battle on the use of ridicule, which has been
fought till both parties, after having shed their ink, divide the
field without victory or defeat, and now stand looking on each other.
The advocates for the use of RIDICULE maintain that it is a natural
sense or feeling, bestowed on us for wise purposes by the Supreme
Being, as are the other feelings of beauty and of sublimity;--the
sense of beauty to detect the deformity, as the sense of ridicule the
absurdity of an object: and they further maintain, that no real
virtues, such as wisdom, honesty, bravery, or generosity, can be
ridiculed.
The great Adversary of Ridicule replied that they did not dare to
ridicule the virtues openly; but, by overcharging and distorting them
they could laugh at leisure. "Give them other names," he says, "call
them but Temerity, Prodigality, Simplicity, &c., and your business is
done. Make them ridiculous, and you may go on, in the freedom of wit
and humour (as Shaftesbury distinguishes ridicule), till there be
never a virtue left to laugh out of countenance."
The ridiculers acknowledge that their favourite art may do mischief,
when _dishonest men obtrude circumstances foreign to the object_. But,
they justly urge, that the use of reason itself is full as liable to
the same objection: grant Spinoza his false premises, and his
conclusions will be considered as true. Dyson threw out an ingenious
illustration. "It is so equally in the mathematics; where, in
reasoning about a circle, if we join along with its real properties
others that do not belong to it, our conclusions will certainly be
erroneous. Yet who would infer from hence that _the manner of proof_
is defective or fallacious?"
Warburton urged the strongest _case_ against the use of ridicule, in
that of Socrates and Aristophanes. In his strong and coarse
illustration he shows, that "by clapping a fool's coat on the most
immaculate virtue, it stuck on Socrates like a San Benito, and at last
brought him to his execution: it made the owner resemble his direct
opposite; that character he was most unlike. The consequences are well
known."
Warburton here adopted the popular notion, that the witty buffoon
Aristophanes was the occasion of the death of the philosopher
Socrates. The defence is skilful on the part of Dyson; and we may
easily conceive that on so important a point Akenside had been
consulted. I shall give it in his own words:--
"The Socrates of Aristophanes is as truly ridiculous a character as
ever was drawn; but it is not the character of Socrates himself. The
object was perverted, and the mischief which ensued was owing to
the dishonesty of him who persuaded the people that that was the
real character of Socrates, not from any error in the faculty of
ridicule itself."--Dyson then states the fact as it concerned
Socrates. "The real intention of the contrivers of this ridicule
was not so much to mislead the people, by giving them a bad opinion of
Socrates, as to sound what was at the time the general opinion of him,
that from thence they might judge whether it would be safe to bring
a direct accusation against him. The most effectual way of making
this trial was by ridiculing him; for they knew, if the people saw
his character in its true light, they would be displeased with the
misrepresentation, and not endure the ridicule. On trial this
appeared: the play met with its deserved fate; and, notwithstanding
the exquisiteness of the wit, was absolutely _rejected_. A second
attempt succeeded no better; and the abettors of the poet were so
discouraged from pursuing their design against Socrates, that it was
not till ABOVE TWENTY YEARS after _the publication of the play_ that
they brought their accusation against him! It was not, therefore,
ridicule that did, or could destroy Socrates: he was rather
sacrificed for the right use of it himself, against the Sophists, who
could not bear the test."
Thus, then, stands the argument.--Warburton, reasoning on the abuses
of ridicule, has opened to us all its dangers. Its advocate concedes
that Ridicule, to be a test of Truth, must not impose on us
circumstances which are foreign to the object. No object can be
ridiculed that is not ridiculous. Should this happen, then the
ridicule is false; and, as such, can be proved as much as any piece of
false reasoning. We may therefore conclude, that ridicule is a taste
of congruity and propriety not possessed by every one; a test which
separates truth from imposture; a talent against the exercise of which
most men are interested to protest; but which, being founded on the
constituent principles of the human mind, is often indulged at the
very moment it is decried and complained of.
But we must not leave this great man without some notice of that
peculiar style of controversy which he adopted, and which may be
distinguished among our LITERARY QUARRELS. He has left his name to a
school--a school which the more liberal spirit of the day we live in
would not any longer endure. Who has not heard of THE WARBURTONIANS?
That SECRET PRINCIPLE which directed Warburton in all his works, and
which we have attempted to pursue, could not of itself have been
sufficient to have filled the world with the name of Warburton. Other
scholars have published reveries, and they have passed away, after
showing themselves for a time, leaving no impression; like those
coloured and shifting shadows on a wall, with which children are
amused; but Warburton was a literary Revolutionist, who, to maintain a
new order of things, exercised all the despotism of a perpetual
dictator. The bold unblushing energy which could lay down the most
extravagant positions, was maintained by a fierce dogmatic spirit, and
by a peculiar style of mordacious contempt and intolerant insolence,
beating down his opponents from all quarters with an animating shout
of triumph, to encourage those more serious minds, who, overcome by
his genius, were yet often alarmed by the ambiguous tendency of his
speculations.[182]
The Warburtonian School was to be supported by the most licentious
principles; by dictatorial arrogance,[183] by gross invective, and by
airy sarcasm;[184] the bitter contempt which, with its many little
artifices, lowers an adversary in the public opinion, was more
peculiarly the talent of one of the aptest scholars, the cool, the
keen, the sophistical Hurd. The lowest arts of confederacy were
connived at by all the disciples,[185] prodigal of praise to
themselves, and retentive of it to all others; the world was to be
divided into two parts, the _Warburtonians_ and the _Anti_.
To establish this new government in the literary world, this great
Revolutionist was favoured by Fortune with two important aids; the one
was a _Machine_, by which he could wield public opinion; and the other
a _Man_, who seemed born to be his minister or his viceroy.
The _machine_ was nothing less than the immortal works of Pope; as
soon as Warburton had obtained a royal patent to secure to himself the
sole property of Pope's works, the public were compelled, under the
disguise of a Commentary on the most classical of our Poets, to be
concerned with all his literary quarrels, and have his libels and
lampoons perpetually before them; all the foul waters of his anger
were deposited here as in a common reservoir.[186]
Fanciful as was the genius of Warburton, it delighted too much in its
eccentric motions, and in its own solitary greatness, amid abstract
and recondite topics, to have strongly attracted the public attention,
had not a party been formed around him, at the head of which stood
the active and subtle Hurd; and amid the gradations of the votive
brotherhood, the profound BALGUY,[187] the spirited BROWN,[188] till
we descend--
To his tame jackal, parson TOWNE.[189]
_Verses on Warburton's late Edition._
This Warburtonian party reminds one of an old custom among our elder
poets, who formed a kind of freemasonry among themselves, by adopting
younger poets by the title of their _sons_.--But that was a domestic
society of poets; this, a revival of the Jesuitic order instituted by
its founder, that--
By him supported with a proper pride,
They might hold all mankind as fools beside.
Might, like himself, teach each adopted son,
'Gainst all the world, to quote a Warburton.[190]
CHURCHILL'S "Fragment of a Dedication."
The character of a literary sycophant was never more perfectly
exhibited than in Hurd. A Whig in principle, yet he had all a
courtier's arts for Warburton; to him he devoted all his genius,
though that, indeed, was moderate; aided him with all his ingenuity,
which was exquisite; and lent his cause a certain delicacy of taste
and cultivated elegance, which, although too prim and artificial, was
a vein of gold running through his mass of erudition; it was Hurd who
aided the usurpation of Warburton in the province of criticism above
Aristotle and Longinus.[191] Hurd is justly characterised by Warton,
in his 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, 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; but 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 develope--it was a self-immolation!
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 Shakspeare, 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.