in this lively Greek's mouth, of opprobrious import. In short, what by his real talents in his way, and by the superior airs he gives himself, I expect that in after-times some admiring Dutch critic, half asleep and all a-gape, will quote him by the style and title of Toupius, ó Távν, that highest and most crowning appellation, to which

'riour. Warburton, he knew, as I know him, and as every man of sense and virtue would wish to be known, I mean, 'both from his own writings, and from the writings of those, 'who dissented from his principles, or who envied his reputa'tion. But as to favours, he had never received or asked any 'from the Bishop of Gloucester; and, if my memory fails 'me not, he had seen him only once, when they met almost 'without design, conversed without much effort, and parted 'without any lasting impression of hatred or affection. Yet, ' with all the ardour of sympathetic genius, Johnson had done 'that spontaneously and ably, which, by some writers, had 'been before attempted injudiciously, and which, by others, 'from whom more successful attempts might have been ex'pected, has not hitherto been done at all. He spoke well of 'Warburton without insulting those, whom Warburton despis'ed. He suppressed not the imperfections of this extraordi'nary man, while he endeavonred to do justice to his nume'rous and transcendental excellencies. He defended him, 'when living, amidst the clamours of his enemies, and praised 'him when dead, amidst the silence of his friends.' Having availed myself of this editor's eulogy on my departed friend, for which I warmly thank him, let me not suffer the lustre of his reputation, honestly acquired by profound learning and vigorous eloquence, to be tarnished by a charge of illiberality. He has been accused of invidiously dragging again into light certain writings of a person respectable by his talents, his learning, his station, and his age, which were published a

critical ambition knows to aspire. This corrector of Suidas and Kuster promises, it seems, a new edition of Longinus. I wish he had chosen some better and more useful book. The Moral Tracts of Plutarch, for instance, are many of them incomparable; but so wretchedly printed, and so corrupt even in the best editions, that

great many years ago, and have since, it is said, been silently given up by their author. But, when it is considered that these writings were not sins of youth, but deliberate works of one well-advanced in life, overflowing at once with flattery to a great man of great interest in the Church, and with unjust and acrimonious abuse of two men of eminent merit, and that, though it would have been unreasonable to expect an humiliating recantation, no apology whatever has been made in the cool of the evening, for the oppressive fervour of the heat of the day-no slight relenting has appeared in any note, or any corner of later publications, is it not fair to understand him as superciliously persevering? When he allows the shafts to remain in the wounds, and will not stretch forth a lenient hand, is it wrong, is it not generous to become an indignant avenger ?" Boswell's Life of Johnson 4, 46.

April 6, 1789. You must read Parr's Dedication and Preface. It ranks him higher in my estimation than anything he has yet produced. I wish he was in the House of Lords; but I am afraid he could not forbear quoting Greek upon us.' Letters from the late Lord Chedworth to the Rev. T. Crompton, Lond. 1828. 4to. p. 154. "June 9. I suppose you are fully acquainted with the history of the Delicacy of Friendship: I look upon the republication of that, and the Letter to Leland, not only as justifiable, but highly laudable. The dirty conduct of the author fully merits all he can suffer. His friends say that he has taken their advice, and has not read it. The Bishop of St. Asaph," (Dr. Samuel Hallifax,) " says he has looked

they are not to be read without much trouble. From Toupius I descend by a gradation of many steps to Jer. Markland, who has published the Supplices of Euripides; indeed reasonably well, so far as respects the printing, the rhythm, and settling the reading of some inconsiderable words. But, when he condescends to explain a whole sentence of his author, as he does sometimes,

through it, to see if there were any false facts in it, which it might be proper to answer, but finding none, (which I think a pretty strong admission,) he told the author," (Bp. Hurd,) "that there was nothing in it worth his troubling himself about. Poor Mr. Darby, (whose wife is Jortin's daughter,) is beyond measure delighted with it, and has obtained franks of me to write his thanks to Parr for the very handsome manner, in which he has treated his father-in-law, and to send him a publication of his," (the Rev. Sam. Darby, Rector of Whatfield in Suffolk,- A Sermon, 1784. 8vo. A Sermon, 1786. 4to.' Dr. Watt's Bibl. Brit.) "I admit that there are one or two passages obscure: there is one, where the meaning, according to accurate construction, is different from what the context necessarily requires, and which a slight alteration would set right; but in such a work,

ubi plura nitent,— non ego paucis Offendar maculis :

these trifling blemishes being evidently the effect of incuria. I know your fondness for Junius. 1 admit it to be well-grounded; but I cannot postpone this Preface and Dedication to any production of that masterly writer. There does not appear to me to be any virulence in Parr towards Warburton; the republication of his pieces being merely intended to shew that this literary pontiff was not, (as his disciples maintain,) infallible : a position, that is in my mind sufficiently manifest from his VOL. II. R

though but rarely, he is not so happy; of which the following may serve for an example. A narration begins v. 650, with the description of the morning in these words:

λαμπρὰ μὲν ἀκτὶς, ἡλίου κανὼν σαφὴς,

βαλλε γαῖαν.

This, your Lordship will say, is plain enough; but his

Shakespeare and his Pope. The hypotheses of W. are in my judgment commonly wrong; but do not suspect me of pretending to know more of W. than I really do: of the Divine Legation I have only read the Dissertation on the sixth Book of the Æneid, published in Pitt and Warton's Virgil: what farther knowledge I have of that celebrated work, is derived from the casual mention of it by other writers. The bulk of it deters me from sitting down to its perusal." P. 164.

Aug. 18, 1791. I shall ever honour Dr. Parr for his Preface and Dedication to the Warburtonian Tracts: the conduct of Hurd, in my opinion, fully merited such a castigation; but I do not undertake completely to understand the whole of Dr. Parr's political conduct," (he had been speaking of the TestAct.) "He is very well vindicated respecting the publication I have mentioned, in a note in Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, which I take for granted you have read." P. 231. " May 28, 1792. From Parr's pamphlet," (about Curtis,) “ I did not receive near so much delight as from his Preface and Dedication to the Warburtonian Tracts." P. 246. " May 14. I am highly pleased with the Critical Observations on the 6th Æneid: I think Hurd must have felt acutely the manner, in which the author has treated his Dedication, which for fulsomeness is exceeded by very few of Dryden's." P. 240. "Febr. 11, 1788. I am much pleased to find that you assent to my conjecture that Lowth had Warburton in his eye in the passage, to which I referred you." P. 96. "Febr. 29, 1794. Since I have been

comment runs thus:

'Incertum est quo sensu voces kavov σan's sumendæ sint. BARNESIUS: Poëta jubar 'meridianum solis, quia canonis instar diem in æquas partes dividit, figurate xavóva dicit. MIHI, de matu'tino tempore potius, et de ortu solis agi videtur, et radius 'solis appellari forte potest κavòv σapǹs, regula clara, 'QUIA, orto sole, perspicue et clare dignoscimus res, quæ ante, et in tenebris confundebantur.' Your Lordship will smile at these efforts of dulness in Barnes and his hypercritic, whereas either of them might have seen, even by the light of Milton's rush-candle, what the true sense of the passsage was; I mean from that

'-long levell'd rule of streaming light,'

in the Comus of that poet, which is a fine and almost literal translation of ἡλίου κανὼν σαφὴς of his favourite Greek poet. After this specimen of his sagacity, it can be no wonder to hear him declare, as he does very solemnly, before he comes to the end of this new volume, that, after all the pains he and others have taken to explain Horace, there is not a single Ode, Epode, Epistle, or Satire, which he can truly and honestly say, he perfectly understands. Was there ever a better instance of a poor

in Town, I have been favoured with the perusal of Lowth's Letter to Warburton, which I had never seen, and which is now extremely scarce: it was a high treat. Did you ever meet with it? A good Life of Warburton, entering deeply into the history of his controversies, would be a very entertaining and instructive work." P. 279. The extracts and the comments, which I have made in this article, are perhaps no inconsiderable contributions towards such a History of the Warburtonian Controversies. E. H. B.]