WARTON, Josepj, an elegant poet and critic, was born in the year 1722, in the house of his maternal grandfather, Joseph Richardson, rector of Dunsford in Surrey. His father, Thomas Warton, B. D. fellow of Magdalen College, and professor of poetry at Oxford, and afterwards vicar of Basingstoke in Hampshire, and of Cobham in Surrey, was descended from an ancient and honourable family of Beverley in Yorkshire. The son was for a short time sent to New College school, but was chiefly educated by his father till he reached the age of fourteen, when he was admitted on the foundation of Winchester College. He was at this early period distinguished by his love of poetry, and one of his school-fellows was William Collins. In September 1740, being superannuated, he was removed from Winchester; and as no vacancy occurred in New College, he was entered of Oriel, when he prosecuted his studies with diligence and success. In 1744 he took the degree of A. B., and was ordained to his father’s curacy at Basingstoke, and officiated in that church till February 1746. He next removed to Chelsea, and afterwards to Cobham.

His father died in the year 1745, leaving two sons and a daughter in circumstances far from affluent. Joseph, his elder son, published by subscription a volume of “Poems on several occasions by the Rev. Mr Thomas Warton, Batchelor of Divinity, late Vicar of Basingstoke in Hampshire, and some time Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford.” Lond. 1748, 8vo. This volume is closed by two poems on the death of the author, one by his daughter Jane, the other by the editor. He had previously published a small collection of his own, entitled “Odes on various subjects.” Lond. 1746, 4to. In 1748 the duke of Bolton presented him to the rectory of Winslade; and although this provision was but scanty, he immediately married Miss Daman, a young lady to whom he had for some time been enthusiastically attached. In 1751 he accompanied the same nobleman on a tour to the south of France. For this arrangement, as Dr Wooll very coolly informs us, the duke had two motives, “the society of a man of learning and taste, and the accommodation of a protestant clergyman, who immediately on the death of the duchess, then in a confirmed dropsy, could marry him to the lady with whom he lived, and who was universally known and distinguished by the name of Polly Peachum.”^[1. Wooll’s Biographical Memoirs of the late Rev. Joseph Warton, D. D. p. 15. Lond. 1306, 4to. ] This, it must be admitted, was a very miserable commission for any protestant clergyman to undertake, nor did Warton earn the wages of his iniquity; for some unexplained reason induced or compelled him to revisit England, before the duchess died; and when, on her demise, he solicited the duke’s permission to return, he had the mortification to learn that the worthy pair had been joined in wedlock by the chaplain to the embassy at Turin.

Before this period, he had undertaken a translation of the Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil; and having associated with it Pitt’s translation of the Aeneid, he added the original text, and accompanied the whole with his own notes. Lond. 1753, 4 vols. 8vo. The book is elegantly printed; but Dr Harwood remarks that the Latin text, especially in the Georgics, is extremely incorrect. A second edition followed in 1778. Warton added three essays, on pastoral, didactic, and epic poetry. This publication laid the foundation of his literary celebrity. Soon after its appearance, he was requested to assist Dr Hawkesworth in the Adventurer, which was commenced in 1752. The invitation was conveyed to him by Dr Johnson, who stated that the department destined for him was that of criticism. To this periodical work he contributed twenty-four papers, of which the greater part relate to critical subjects, and all of them are creditable to his talents and taste.

In 1754 he was instituted to the rectory of Tunworth; and in the following year he was elected second master of Winchester school. In 1756 Lord Lyttelton presented him with a chaplain’s scarf. He now published the first volume of “An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope.” Lond. 1756, 8vo. This is a very elegant and interesting morsel of criticism. Of his claims to the higher characteristics of a poet, Warton has formed a more moderate estimate than many other critics; but after all that has been written on his side of the question, the lively fancy, sparkling wit, and finished terseness of Pope have lost none of their attractions. This work, which appeared without the author’s name, is dedicated to Dr Young, a professed admirer of original composition. In 1759 the university of Oxford conferred upon him by diploma the degree of A. M. In May 1766 he became head-master of Winchester school. For this situation he possessed several qualifications. He was a man of polished manners; nor could his pupils fail to imbibe some portion of his refined taste and love of literature. He was not however without defects. Though an elegant scholar, he was not sufficiently able as a philologist. “He held verbal criticism cheap, and, as a natural consequence, frequently encountered insurmountable difficulties in Greek authors; while the expedients to which he resorted in order to conceal the fact were easy of detection, and excited much amusement among the elder boys.... But Warton wanted other qualities essential to the headmaster of a public school. He was inconsistent in his plans, and deficient in moral courage; often conceding with respect to points of discipline upon which he ought to have been inflexible. These defects paved the way for what was afterwards called the Row when the school was in such a state of rebellion that the interference of the magistrates was required, and upwards of thirty of the boys were expelled. Burgess had left the school before this catastrophe occurred, but he used to tell, among other proofs of the insubordination which prevailed even in his time, that a [7:21:779]riotous boy had the audacity, on one occasion, to hurl a Latin dictionary at Warton’s head.”^[2. Harford’s Life of Thomas Burgess, D. D. late Lord Bishop of Salisbury, p. 5. Lond. 1840, 8vo. ]

On being placed at the head of this great school, Warton repaired to Oxford, and accumulated the degrees of B. and D. D. In 1772 he lost his wife, by whom he had six children. Such a loss was severely felt; but he found himself helpless without the superintending care of a domestic companion; and in the course of the following year he married the daughter of Robert Nicholas, Esq. a descendant of Dr Nicholas, formerly warden of Winchester. From his scholastic toils he was accustomed to seek a relaxation in fashionable as well as literary society. His vacations were frequently spent in London. Like his brother, he became a member of the famous Literary Club; and being conspicuous for the vivacity and pleasantry of his conversation, the circle of his acquaintance was at once brilliant and extensive. His dignified friends did not however advance him to any eminent preferment. In 1782 Bishop Lowth conferred upon him a prebend of St Paul’s and the living of Thorley in Hertfordshire, which he was permitted to exchange for Wickham. In the course of the same year, he published the second volume of his Essay on Pope. In 1788 the interest of Lord Shannon procured him a prebend at Winchester; and to Lord Malmesbury he was indebted for the rectory of Easton, which, before the close of the year, he exchanged for Upham. The amount of these preferments was not inconsiderable, but they came too late to be of much avail to his family. He was sixty years of age before he had any benefice, except the small livings of Winslade and Tunworth, and nearly seventy before he obtained those which afterwards fell to his share.

On the 23d of July 1793 he resigned his office of headmaster, and afterwards retired to his rectory of Wickham. His literary ardour was not yet extinguished; and a liberal offer from the London booksellers encouraged him to undertake a new edition of the works of Pope, which was published in the year 1797 in nine volumes octavo. For such a task he possessed many' qualifications, but his edition did not escape the sharpness of critical reprehension. It was assailed with sufficient virulence by Mathias, in that great repository of literary and political malignity the Pursuits of Literature. He next undertook an edition of Dryden, and about the year 1799 he had completed two volumes, which were afterwards published. At a much earlier period of his life, he had projected a history of the revival of learning; and about the year 1784 he issued proposals for publishing “The History of Grecian, Roman, Italian, and French Poetry, in four parts.” In this work, which was to occupy two quarto volumes, he however appears to have made little or no progress. All his labours and projects were terminated by an incurable disease in his kidneys; and he died on the 23d of February 1800, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. His widow survived till 1806. Besides three daughters, of whom the youngest was by his second wife, he left a son, the late John Warton, D. D. who published a work entitled “Death-bed Scenes.”

Dr Warton was a very elegant, rather than a very profound scholar; and with his classical learning he united much knowledge of modem literature, Italian and French as well as English. On subjects of criticism, he was an agreeable and instructive writer. His poems, which are but few in number, appear in the collection of Mr Chalmers. He is a skilful versifier, and is not destitute of poetical fancy. (x.)

Warton, Thomas, the brother of Dr Warton, was born at Basingstoke in the year 1728. He was distinguished by his very early love of letters; and a tetrastich which he wrote at the age of nine, has been preserved by his biographer. He remained under the domestic tuition of his father till he was prepared for the university. On the 16th of May 1743, he was admitted a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, and was soon afterwards elected a scholar of that house.

He continued to cherish his love of poetry; and in 1747 he published without his name “The Pleasures of Melancholy,” written two years before. On the appearance of Mason’s “Isis, an Elegy,” which contains reflections on the Jacobitical principles then prevalent at Oxford, Warton was encouraged by Dr Huddesfield, president of his college, to repel this attack. He accordingly published, in 1749, “The Triumph of Isis, occasioned by Isis, an Elegy.” This poem, written at the age of twenty-one, extended his reputation. The principal of St Mary Hall, who is highly extolled for his Roman eloquence, sent the young author a present of five pounds. The same individual is likewise extolled for his patriotism. From the “Political and Literary Anecdotes of his own Times,” published long after his death, it is evident that Dr King was deeply implicated in the schemes of the Jacobites; and we may thus ascertain the value of the commendation bestowed upon such a “patriot’s fire.”

Warton took the degree of A. M. on the first of December 1750, and in the course of the following year succeeded to a fellowship. He was thus placed in a situation well adapted to his character and pursuits. Though not rich, he was easy and independent, and had abundant leisure for the cultivation of those elegant studies in which he delighted. About this period he published various poems, either in a separate form or in some of the miscellaneous collections of the day. He was the editor of “The Union, or select Scots and English Poems,” first printed at Edinburgh in 1753. This collection, of which there are three editions, includes several of his own poems; two of which, an ode and a pastoral, he has chosen to describe as written by a gentleman formerly of the university of Aberdeen. He afterwards published a work which evinces great knowledge of English literature, and a very sound spirit of criticism, “Observations on the Fairie Queene of Spenser.” Lond. 1754, 8vo. An edition, in two volumes octavo, followed in 1762. The first edition was attacked in a scurrilous pamphlet, bearing the title of “The Observer observed; or, Remarks on a certain curious Tract, entitled Observations on the Fairie Queene of Spenser, by Thomas Warton, A. M.” Lond. 1756, 8vo. This pamphlet, which appeared without the author’s name, was written by Huggins, the unpoetical translator of Ariosto.

In 1757, on the resignation of Mr Hawkins of Pembroke College, he was elected professor of poetry. For this office, which is only tenable for ten years, he was eminently qualified by his taste as well as his learning; and we are informed that he exerted himself to fulfil its duties, by a constant recommendation of the elegance and simplicity of the classic poets. His lectures are said to have been remarkable for elegance of diction, and justness of observation. A specimen may be found in his dissertation “De Poesi Bucolica Graecorum which was originally delivered as one of these lectures, and having afterwards been enlarged, was prefixed to his edition of Theocritus.

His next publication was an elegant little collection entitled “Inscriptionum Romanarum Metricarum Delectus. Accedunt notulae.” Lond. 1758, 4to. The ancient are mixed with a few modern inscriptions. One of these, by Dr Jortin, had been printed as an ancient relique, in the Miscellaneous Observations on various Authors. Warton, who apparently entertained a doubt of its genuineness, has [7:21:780] commended it as “conditissimum carmen.” It however contains one very unhappy pentameter:

Utque tuus rursum corpore sim posito.

The editor has inserted four inscriptions written by himself, numbers 41, 44, 45, and 47, which he pretends were transmitted to him from Italy by a learned friend. This was evidently a mode of ascertaining his own proficiency as an imitator of ancient simplicity and elegance; but whether such a device is altogether excusable, may perhaps admit of some doubt.

To Dr Johnson’s Idler he contributed three papers, Nos. 33, 93, and 96; but Dr Mant has erroneously stated that he was likewise a contributor to the Connoisseur, published by Colman and Thornton. In 1760 he printed two little works without his name. One of them is “A Description of the City, College, and Cathedral of Winchester.” The other is entitled “A Companion to the Guide, and a Guide to the Companion; being a complete Supplement to all the Accounts of Oxford hitherto published.” This facetious production speedily reached a third edition, and it was again printed at Oxford in 1806. He afterwards published “The Life and Literary Remains of Ralph Bathurst, Μ. D. Dean of Wells, and President of Trinity College in Oxford.” Lond. 1761, 8vo. This volume, though chiefly interesting to the members of his own college, is not without its attractions to those who delight in the history of literature and its professors.

Reverting to his classical pursuits, he prepared for the press “Anthologiae Graecae, a Constantino Cephala conditae, libri tres, ad editionem Lipsiensem Joannis Jacobi Reiske expressi. Accedunt interpretatio Latina, poetarum anthologicoum notitia, indices necessarii.” Oxon. 1766, 8vo. Warton has contributed an elegant preface, together with some brief annotations. The Latin version, the elaborate account of the poets, and the six indices, are reprinted from Reiske’s edition. After an interval of four years, he published a more elaborate work: “Theocriti Syracusii quae supersunt, cum scholiis Graecis auctioribus, emendationibus et animadversionibus in scholia editoris et Joannis Toupii, glossis selectis ineditis,” &c. Oxon. 1770, 2 tom. 4to. This edition is elegantly and correctly printed; and, in a letter to the editor, Toup described it as “the best publication that ever came from the Clarendon press.” In compliance with the recommendation of the delegates, it was printed without accents, although Dr Foster, eight years before, had made a solemn remonstrance against a practice so heretical.^[3. Foster’s Essay on the different Nature of Accent and Quantity, p. 226. Eton, 17S2, 8vo. ] The scholia are not conveniently disposed for the purpose of reference; and in the opinion of Harles as well as Brunck, the editor has not to the full extent availed himself of all the valuable materials that were within his reach. But an edition of a Greek poet by a scholar so accomplished, and possessing so much elegance of taste, is not very frequently recorded in the annals of classical literature.

On the 7th of December 1767, he had taken the degree of B. D.; and on the 22d of October 1771, he was instituted to the small living of Kiddington in Oxfordshire, on the presentation of the earl of Lichfield, then chancellor of the university. From April 1755 to April 1774, he served the curacy of Woodstock, except during the long vacation. His pulpit oratory does not appear to have had any peculiar recommendation; but it was stated by an anonymous writer in 1803, that many were still alive who spoke of him with more regard and affection than of any other person who ever officiated at Woodstock. He likewise augmented his income by taking pupils; and Mr North, afterwards earl of Guildford, was placed under his care in 1774.

His situation in the university led to his next literary undertaking, “The Life of Sir Thomas Pope, Founder of Trinity College, Oxford; chiefly compiled from original evidences. With an Appendix of Papers never before printed.” Lond. 1772, 8vo. This work, of which the original sketch was inserted in the Biographie Britannica, was reprinted in the year 1780. It extends to an ample volume, and is written with his usual elegance. The author’s model is Bishop Lowth’s Life of William of Wykeham; and both works afford very favourable examples of this species of biography, in which the details of the antiquary are rendered graceful by the taste of the scholar.

This was followed by a more important publication, namely, the first volume of “The History of English Poetry, from the close of the eleventh to the commencement of the eighteenth century. To which are prefixed two Dissertations: 1. On the Origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe: 2. On the Introduction of Learning into England.” Lond. 1774, 4to. A second edition of this volume was speedily required. The second volume was published in 1778, and the third in 1781. To this last he prefixed “A Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum.” The impression of the work extended to 1250 copies; and the copy-right is said to have been purchased for three hundred and fifty pounds. He did not live to complete the plan which his title announces; for he only descended to the reign of Elizabeth. Although he survived the publication of the third volume for nine years, he had only printed eleven sheets of the fourth; nor does he appear to have left any additional portion of it in a state of preparation. At the end of an edition of his Poems, published in 1791, we find this announcement: “Speedily will be published, by the same author, the fourth and last volume of the History of English Poetry; in which the subject will [be] carried down to the commencement of the present century.” It was the intention of Dr Warton to complete his brother’s great work; but there is no evidence of his having made any progress in such an undertaking.

The History of English Poetry experienced a very favourable reception, and greatly contributed to extend the reputation of the author. With very extensive and variegated research Warton combines much knowledge of ancient and modern literature; and he enlivens the most unpromising disquisitions with many flowers of an active fancy and a refined taste. The book is written in an excellent English style, generally elegant and often graceful, never descending too low or rising too high. With these impressions of his great and conspicuous merit, we hold it to be impossible to acquiesce in the averment, that “his history has been found so dry and oppressive as to subdue the eagerness of the generality of readers.” Such readers must certainly be in a very inadequate state of preparation. Soon after the appearance of his third volume, he was assailed in an anonymous pamphlet, entitled “Observations on the three first volumes of the History of English Poetry, in a familiar Letter to the Author.” Lond. 1782, 4to. This familiar letter was the production of Ritson, and is plentifully furnished with his inexhaustible virulence. Warton, like every other man who has published a work in three volumes, has exhibited errors and mistakes; but those which his rabid censor has detected are neither so numerous nor so important as to warrant any great severity of reprehension. In spite of such critics as these, the work has steadily maintained as much popularity as could reasonably have been anticipated. A valuable edition, “carefully revised, with numerous additional notes by the late Mr Ritson, the late Dr [Mr] Ashby, Mr Douce, Mr Park, and other eminent antiquaries, and by the editor,” was published by the late [7:21:781] Richard Price, a man eminently qualified for the undertaking. Lond. 1824, 4 vols. 8vo. His preface, extending to 113 pages, is very able and elaborate; and the same remark is applicable to many of his annotations. Warton’s transcripts from old manuscripts having too frequently been hasty and inaccurate, many of his errors are corrected by the editor. This edition, with additional notes by Sir Frederic Madden and other antiquaries, was reprinted in three volumes in the year 1840.

During the progress of his great work, he published a collection of his Poems. Lond. 1777, 8vo. A second edition appeared in 1778, a third in 1779, a fourth in 1789, and a fifth in 1791. This was followed by a more complete edition of “The Poetical Works of the late Thomas Warton, B. D.” Oxford, 1802, 2 vols. 8vo. The editor, Dr Mant, now bishop of Down, has accompanied it with memoirs of his life and writings, and with notes critical and explanatory. His Poems are reprinted in the great collections of Dr Anderson and Mr Chalmers.

Warton took some share in the famous controversy respecting the poems produced by Chatterton. He published “An Enquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley; in which the Arguments of the Dean of Exeter and Mr Bryant are examined.” Lond. 1782,8vo. His opinion, it may easily be supposed, coincided with that of Tyrwhitt. He had now formed the plan of preparing a history of the county of Oxford. As a specimen, he had printed for the inspection of his friends, twenty copies of the History of the Parish of Kiddington; and an edition of it was afterwards published. Lond. 1783, 4to. In 1782 he was presented by his college to the donative of Hill Farrance in Somersetshire. In 1785 he was elected Camden professor of ancient history, on the resignation of Dr Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell. He had been a candidate for the same office in 1768, when one Vivian was preferred. On the fifth of May 1786, he read an inaugural lecture, written in his usual 3tyle of terse Latinity; but this seems to have been the full extent of his labours in his new department In the course of the year 1785, he had succeeded Whitehead in the office of poet laureate; an office which, till a very recent period, continued to be held by a tenure sufficiently abject. The barbaric exaction to which the laureate was so long subjected, is not very creditable to the taste of the first three sovereigns of the Hanoverian dynasty. Soon after his appointment, Warton was treated with some degree of witty freedom, in a publication entitled “Probationary Odes for the Laureateship.” But he had too much good nature to be easily annoyed; and, as his brother has stated, “he always heartily joined in the laugh, and applauded the exquisite wit and humour that appeared in many of these original satires.”

The last of his literary labours was an edition of “Poems upon several occasions, English, Italian, and Latin, with Translations, by John Milton: viz. Lycidas, L’Allegro, &c. With notes, critical and explanatory.” Lond. 1785, 8vo. A second edition, with many alterations and large additions, was published in 1791. One of these editions is an appendix containing “Remarks on the Greek Verses of Milton,” by Dr Burney. It was the design of the editor to publish a second volume, comprehending Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. The notes exhibit a great variety of illustration, drawn from ancient as well as modern literature; but they are not unfrequently disfigured by the pitiful prejudices of a mere high-churchman. Dr Mant observes that “he has in one or two instances been guilty of an oversight, of which a remarkable example occurs in the note on the twenty-second verse of Mansus, where he attributes the life of Homer to Plutarch instead of Herodotus, and describes Mycale as a mountain in Boeotia instead of Asia Minor.” The bishop evidently was not aware that there is one life of Homer ascribed to Plutarch and another to Herodotus. In the other part of his criticism he is more accurate; and Warton was apparently led into this small error by recollecting a passage of Ovid, where Mycale is grouped with a mountain of Boeotia:

Et Mycale, natusque ad sacra Cithaeron.

He had now approached the termination of his distinguished career. Till he reached his sixty-second year, he had continued to enjoy vigorous and uninterrupted health. Having then been seized with the gout, he repaired to Bath, where he persuaded himself that a favourable change had taken place; but on his return to Oxford, his appearance did not convey the same impression to his friends. On the 20th of May 1790, he passed the evening in the common room of the college, and for some time was more cheerful than usual; but between ten and eleven o’clock, when only two of the fellows remained with him, he was suddenly affected with paralysis. He continued speechless, and only survived till two o’clock on the following day. His remains were deposited in the college-chapel, with the highest academical honours; the ceremony being attended not only by the members of his own college, but likewise by the vice-chancellor, heads of houses, and proctors.

The personal character of Thomas Warton presented many amiable aspects. In his manners, he was remarkably simple and unassuming. In the company of strangers, particularly those of a literary class, he was inclined to be shy and reserved; but, within the circle of his friends, his conversation was easy and gay, enriched with anecdote, enlivened with humour, besprinkled with puns, and sparkling with wit. His temper is described as habitually calm, his disposition as gentle, friendly, and forgiving. “His resentments, where he could be supposed to have any, were expressed rather in the language of jocularity than anger.” Of Ritson’s foul and unprovoked abuse, he only expressed his sense by calling him a black-letter dog. If he had possessed as much worldly wisdom as many of his brethren, he might probably have attained to much higher preferment in the church; but, apparently contented with his moderate provision, he continued to lead a tranquil and studious life, little infested with the cares of this world, and alike free from envy and ambition.

As a writer he has displayed varied excellence. He was an accurate as well as an elegant classical scholar; and to his masterly knowledge of English literature he added an extensive acquaintance with the polite literature of France and Italy. He was no mean poet, nor are his Latin inferior to his English verses. As a classical critic, he is advantageously known by his edition of Theocritus. Most of his publications are replete with variegated learning; but the great foundation of his fame is the History of English Poetry, a work which in its own department is unrivalled in English literature. (x.)