opinion on the subjects of which they treat, but in setting brilliant examples of a false method. A visionary projector carries his own refutation with him; but when a first-rate calculator devotes his powers to squaring the circle, there is so much method in his madness, that his example is sure to be influential on similarly constituted minds.

In Warburton's famous work the paradox so commonly imputed is to be found, we conceive, not in the main positions proposed to be proved, but in the connexion or inference attempted to be established between the positions; in the absolute statement of those positions without any qualification; and lastly, in the supposition that this connexion or inference could be shown by proof of demonstrative cogency. Bishop Bull had remarked (Harmon. Apost. ii. 10. 8), that in reference to the doctrine of a future state, the Old Testament must be separated into an earlier and a later part; and that while the Law contained no promise of eternal life, in the Prophetic books a distinct and direct promise could hardly be said to be found ("clarum ac disertum promissum vix ac ne vix quidem reperias"). This guarded statement probably meets, as nearly as possible, the exact requirements of the language of the Jewish canon. But it is a point of critical judgment, to be founded on a consideration of all the passages, not admitting of being either proved or disproved. The constant opinion of all moderate and impartial persons has been, as Mr. Lancaster (Harmony of Law and Gospel, p. 409) puts it, that "this doctrine was both recognised and countenanced, but not explicitly and directly taught, in the Pentateuch." In Warburton's hands this opinion becomes the affirmation that future rewards and punishments were not taught in the Mosaic dispensation at all, and that the Israelites, from the time of Moses to the time of the Captivity, had not the doctrine of a future state. This he declares that he shows by the clearest and most incontestable arguments. Then he proceeds to draw the inference, that a people who could have been placed under such a system must have had an immediate providential superintendence to replace a doctrine which is found to be the very bond and cement of human society. Finally, the propositions here involved, and the inference from one to the other, are put forward, not .with the modest diffidence of an inquirer, but with the arrogant swagger of a demonstration, and an insulting challenge to all the world to yield an immediate assent. Gibbon, speaking of one of his later productions, says: "The secret intentions of Julian are revealed by the late Bishop of Gloucester, the learned and dogmatic Warburton, who, with the authority of a theologian, prescribes the motives and conduct of the Supreme Being.'

We cannot help thinking that in the epithet “learned” in this quotation lurks a Gibbonian sneer. No one knew better than the historian, that to have read many books and remembered their contents, is "learning" only in a very popular acceptation of the word. But in no other sense was Warburton entitled to be called a "learned" man. His temper was too arrogant to "learn," too impatient to inquire. He went the àpriori road, and, having formed a very decided opinion, searched books to find arguments with which to support it. For some employments, for metaphysical speculation, for arbitrating between predestination and free-will, for framing an ideal polity, or for any theorising where the facts are few and obvious, such an intellect is well fitted. But it was Warburton's ill fortune that his own bent no less than that of his age determined his pen to social and historical topics. The crying evils of society, both in France and England, were forcing the minds of men upon the consideration of their causes and their remedies. Political institutions appeared to them the most influential of these causes. The great work of Montesquieu, the Esprit des Lois, is the epochal book of this phase of speculation, which was only closed by the revolution of '88. To the same mode of thought must be referred Warburton's speculations, however deficient in those qualities of judgment, profound observation of human character, and attentive induction of fact, which made the Esprit des Lois overlive the epoch which produced it. The idea of a future state of reward and punishment employed as a restraining force over human passion and appetite in aid of civil sanctions, this view of religion, which belongs entirely to his age, Warburton took up, and the greater part of what he wrote turns on it. To detect the presence or absence of this idea through past times, and the amount of its influence at various periods, is by no means an uninteresting inquiry. But it is an inquiry which demands not only the most extensive survey of ancient literature, but a delicate appreciation of modes of thought, and an exact knowledge of the ancient languages. Of "learning" in this sense Warburton was hopelessly destitute. That he was not a philologian of the calibre of Bentley, every one is prepared to admit. That he was not as a classical scholar equal to many of his own generation-Jortin or Markland, Lowth or Parr-may perhaps surprise no one to hear. But the truth goes far beyond even this. Warburton was wholly without any tincture of what we understand by scholarship. Of the Greek language he had scarcely any knowledge. Latin he knew very badly. He was not competent to decide upon the sense of any difficult passage in a classical author, and was wholly at the mercy of translators and commentators. Yet so impudently did he assume the privileges

of a scholar, and so cleverly did he disguise his amazing ignorance, that he succeeded in imposing his opinion on the world, as one that was at least entitled to a refutation. Even his professed biographers have not sounded the depths of his deficiencies. All that Dr. Whitaker says is, "In the mind of Warburton the foundation of classical literature had been well laid, yet not so as to pursue the science of ancient criticism with an exactness equal to the extent in which he grasped it." And the present biographer only speaks of his "imperfect acquaintance with Greek," and "unskilfulness in the niceties of Latin;" phrases far too lenient for the imposture in this respect actually practised by Warburton. The secret was divined by more than one of his contemporaries, though even by them hardly in its full extent. If we compare the correspondence with Lowth in 1756 with Lowth's letter of Sept. 1765, we see that in the interim Lowth's eyes had been opened to the fact he had not suspected,that one who undertook in such dogmatic tone to settle the age of the book of Job, had not, and could not, read it, and that the demonstrator of Moses' legation never read the Hebrew Pentateuch! This discovery may have led him to surmise that similar dogmatism in the use of Greek and Latin concealed similar ignorance. He accordingly concludes his letter with the threat that he would take in hand the Divine Legation, as he had demolished the Appendix. As this threat was never executed, we have no means of knowing how far Lowth was in the secret. Upton, referring to Warburton having cited Homer in this fashion, δ ̓ ἔνδυνε χιτῶνα καλόν, remarked that as νῦν and kal begin sentences, so might dè for aught Warburton knew to the contrary. The Rev. Henry Taylor detected him, in citing the Phoenisse, copying Brumoy's French (very French) version. Dr. John Taylor had denounced him in Cambridge combination-rooms as "no scholar." The story bears marks of having been improved, but is perhaps not untrue in the main point. It is, that Warburton sent a friend to ask Taylor, if he had really used the words? And that Taylor replied, "He did not remember ever having said that Warburton was no scholar, but he had certainly always thought so." Edwards, the author of the Canons of Criticism, is the subject of another anecdote. Edwards was a frequent guest at Prior Park in Allen's time. During their conversations, Warburton was fond of showing a knowledge of Greek, assuming that Edwards, who was, or had been, in the army, knew nothing of the language. One day, a dispute arising in the library, Edwards took down the book, and explained the passage in a sense quite contrary to that which Warburton had given it. Warburton, of Warburton, of course, maintained his own opinion, till Edwards was obliged to show him

H

that his misconception arose from his having trusted to the French translation. Jortin's gentle admonition in his correction of Warburton's translation of "princeps" has been already mentioned.

Forearmed with these hints, we approach Warburton's writings with the distrust they are calculated to create. Recollecting the case of Gibbon, and considering that want of the language of the Greeks does not absolutely exclude a critic from all use of the wisdom of the Greeks, we could not say beforehand that Warburton might not have ascertained correctly some of the forms of Greek life and opinion, and reasoned soundly upon them. A cautious man, conscious of labouring under one heavy disqualification for the task he had undertaken, might have done this. But Warburton was not conscious of the limited range of his aquirements in Greek and Latin, and was the reverse of cautious. He thought he could refute Bentley; he had "a very poor opinion of both Markland and Taylor's critical abilities" (Letter to Birch); and he confidently undertook to amend the text, not only of Shakespeare, but of Cicero and Velleius Paterculus. The emendations of Paterculus which he sent to the Bibliothèque Britannique in 1736 were specimens of an edition which he contemplated. Of the loss that letters have sustained by the non-execution of this scheme, one example may enable the reader to judge. Speaking of Cume and Neapolis, two Greek settlements in Italy, the text of Velleius had "Utriusque urbis semper eximia in Romanos fides. Sed aliis diligentior ritus patrii mansit custodia. Cumanos Osca mutavit vicinia." "Aliis" in this passage is certainly not above suspicion, and Ruhnken printed "illis;" a neat conjecture, which has been received with the favour it deserved. Warburton's note is: "I read, sed Neapolis diligentior ritus patrii mansit custodia; which makes it a pertinent observation, and worthy the notice of an exact historian. And it is not difficult to conceive Neapolis being corrupted to aliis by a stupid copier." We cannot help Mr. Selby Watson in his grave perplexity, whether "he means Neapolis for Neapolitanis, or for the genitive case of Neapolis." But the critic who could turn Shakespeare's "past the infinite of thought" (Much Ado, ii. 3) into "past the definite of thought;" who could explain "prayers from preserved souls" (Measure for Measure, ii. 2) as a metaphor taken from fruit preserved in sugar, will scarcely be thought to have more skill in his own language than in Latin. We could fill a page with his verbal mistakes; show him restricting á ávaros to the immortality of gods; explaining deioidaipovia as the fear of demons or inferior gods; and misconstruing his own citations so frequently, that at last we cannot avoid thinking that he

does not apprehend the meaning of Virgil's "sub luce maligna❞ (Works, iv. 416), or understand "testari" in its sense of "to cite" (Works, iii. 203); though we should be disposed to give any one else the benefit of the doubt, which the reader, who chooses to turn to the references, will see exists in these two

cases.

Such verbal mistakes might be but slight deformities on the surface of a grand and noble work. To make much of them would then be only worthy of those "little grammarians,” for whom Warburton so habitually expressed his contempt, including therein, as Jortin slyly suggested (Life, p. 446), a contempt for grammar. But the truth is, they are not flaws in the fabric; they are of its texture. When he is writing of "the ancients," -Warburton always speaks of "the ancients" or "pagan antiquity" in the lump, and this when he is investigating the history of opinion:-his notions are one mass of misconception from beginning to end; a misconception in which his misunderstanding of single passages is but a subordinate element. His reasoning is such, that any thing whatever might be proved in the same way of argumentation, as Mosheim told him, while at the same time doing ample homage to his talents,* in a compliment which Warburton himself transcribed into his own pages. Of all the tasks which have exercised the ingenuity of scholars, that of reproducing the religious and philosophical opinion of the Greek schools from the fragmentary and contradictory accounts which remain to us, is the most delicate and precarious. Warburton is hampered by no doubts; he rushes in where Wolf or Heyne fear to tread, and "presumes to enter the very penetralia of antiquity" (Works, iii. 215). Entering these dark recesses under the conduct of our self-confident guide, we are surprised to find how plainly and clearly all objects are visible there; the "double doctrine" and To "Ev are every where round us; Aristotle is cleared up by "his best interpreter, Bossu" (Works, ii. 80); "Lucian of all the ancients best understood the intrigues and intricacies of ancient philosophy" (iii. 105); and Socrates "was in morals a dogmatist, as appears largely by Xenophon and the less fabulous parts of Plato" (iii. 52). If there is any "obscurity in Plato's writings, it is caused by the double doctrine, and by the joint profession of two such contrary philosophies as the Pythagorean and the Socratic" (iii. 87). But it need not give us much concern if there be; for "all the Greek philosophers are shown for knaves

* "Ego quidem mediocris ingenii homo, et tanto viro quantus est Warburtonus longe inferior, omnes Theologos nihil eorum quæ publice tradunt credere, et callide hominum mentibus impietatis venenum afflare velle convincam, si mihi eadem eos via invadendi potestas concedatur, qua Philosophos vir doctissimus aggressus est."