love and admiration of virtue, and (what was the necessary effect) his hatred and contempt of vice, his extensive charity to the indigent, his warm benevolence to mankind, his supreme veneration of the Deity, and above all, his sincere belief in revelation. Nor shall his faults be concealed; it is not for the interest of his virtues that they should; nor indeed could they be concealed if we were so minded; for they shine through his virtues, no man being more a dupe to the specious appearances of virtue in others. In a word, I mean not to be his panegyrist but his historian; and may I, when envy and calumny take the same advantage of my absence (for while I live I will freely trust it to my life to confute them) may I find a friend as careful of my honest fame, as I have been of his !" Whether Warburton had in this prospectus held out more than he found himself able to accomplish, or whether his ecclesiastical and episcopal duties engrossed in his later years the whole of his attention and time, certain it is that these promises were never performed by him, at least not under his own name; but in the year 1769, whilst he was yet living, a Life of Pope was published by Owen Ruffhead, Esq., a gentleman of the bar, and per

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haps more generally known as the editor of The Statutes at Large; avowedly with the assistance of " original manuscripts," communicated to him by Warburton, from which, as he informs us, his history was chiefly compiled." Of this work, which bears decided marks of the frequent interference and style of Warburton, more than three-fourths are occupied with criticisms, extracts, and eulogies of the writings of Pope, as already published. The remainder, containing a very imperfect and desultory account of his life, is accompanied with notes and discussions, in which the name and merits of Dr. Warburton are frequently introduced in the most favourable terms. Upon the whole, this volume, although the most authentic account hitherto published, by no means fulfils the expectations excited, or the promises so ostentatiously held out.

The life of Pope by Dr. Johnson, has been considered as one of the best of that series, which, unfortunately for the memory of our national poets, and the character of our national poetry, he was induced to undertake. Throughout the whole of those lives there appears an assumption of superiority in the biographer over the subjects of his labours,

1

which diminishes the idea of their talents, and leaves an unfavourable impression on their moral character. It could only be from the representations of Johnson, that so amiable a man as Cowper could thus close his remarks on reading the Lives of the British Poets.* "After all, it is a melancholy observation, which it is impossible not to make, after having run through this series of poetical lives, that where there were such shining talents, there should be so little virtue. These luminaries of our country seem to have been kindled into a brighter blaze than others, only that their spots might be more noticed; so much can nature do for our intellectual part, and so little for our moral. What vanity, what petulance in POPE! how painfully sensible of censure, and yet how restless in provocation! To what mean artifices could ADDISON stoop, in hopes of injuring the reputation of his friend! SAVAGE, how sordidly vicious! and the more condemned for the pains that are taken to palliate his vices! offensive as they appear through a veil, how would they disgust without one. What a sycophant to the

* See Cowper's Letters lately published by the Rev. J. Johnson.

public taste was DRYDEN! sinning against his feelings, lewd in his writings, though chaste in his conversation. I know not but one might search these eight volumes with a candle, as the prophet says, to find a MAN, and not find ONE, unless, perhaps, ARBUTHNOT were he." Can this have been said in the country of SPENSER, of SHAKSPEARE, of SIDNEY, and of MILTON? of DONNE, of CORBET, of HALL, of MARVEL, and of COWLEY? of ROSCOMMON, of GARTH, of CONGREVE, of PARNELLE, of Rowe, and of GAY? of THOMSON, of LYTTELTON, and of YOUNG? of SHENSTONE, of AKENSIDE, of COLLINS, of GOLDSMITH, of MASON, and of GRAY?

"Unspotted names! and memorable long,

If there be force in virtue or in song!"

The lustre of which, as well as of many others that might be adduced, can never be obscured, either by the most morbid malignity, or by the darkest fanaticism.

Of the unfavourable and degrading tendency of the biographical writings of Johnson, his Life of Pope exhibits too many instances. Brief yet decisive, superficial yet sententious, he seems neither to know, nor to be very anxious to inquire into the various circumstances which have given rise to so much con

troversy; and whilst he is too indolent to investigate the truth of the numerous imputations that have been cast on the moral character of Pope, unjustly attributes to his philosophical doctrines the most unfounded and dangerous consequences. Those subjects respecting Pope which seem to have attracted his more particular inquiry, are such as relate to his personal defects and infirmities, the weakness of his constitution, and the irritability of his temper.

Whoever wishes to be

acquainted with these, need resort to no other source. We may there be informed of the economy of his dressing-room, to the minutest particulars; and of his "petty peculiarities," as communicated by a female domestic of the Earl of Oxford, "who knew him. perhaps after the middle of life," and shall doubtless be gratified to find (what it will be difficult to meet with elsewhere), "that the indulgence and accommodation which his sickness required, had taught him all the unpleasing and unsocial qualities of a valetudinary man. It must also be observed, that the work of Johnson, like those before adverted to, is in a great part occupied in criticisms on the poetry of Pope, in which it is scarcely necessary to observe, that amongst much un