William, being made head master of the school at Newark, he returned to his native place, and was, for a short time, under the care of that learned and respectable person, of whom more will be said presently. I only now add, that he was father to the Rev. Thomas Warburton, the present very worthy archdeacon of Norfolk, to whom I am indebted for the particulars here mentioned concerning his family.

I cannot, I confess, entertain the reader of this narrative with those encomiums which are so commonly lavished on the puerile years of eminent men. On the best inquiry I have been able to make, I do not find that, during his stay at school, he distinguished himself by any extraordinary efforts of genius or application. My information authorises me to go no further than to say, that he loved his book and his play just as other boys did. And, upon reflection, I am not displeased with this modest testimony to his merit. For I remember what the best judges have thought of premature wits. And we all know that the mountain oak, which is one day to make the strength of our fleets, is of slower growth than the saplings which adorn our gardens.

But, although no prodigy of parts or industry in those early years, with a moderate share of each, he could not fail of acquiring by the age of sixteen, the time when he left school, a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin, under such masters as those of Okeham and Newark.

It had been his misfortune to lose his father very early. He died in 1706, and the care of his family devolved, of course, upon his widow, who, as we have seen, gave her son the best school education, and, in all respects, approved herself so good a woman, as well as parent, that her children paid her all possible respect: her son, in particular, all whose affections were naturally warm, gave her every proof of duty and observance while she lived, and, after her death, retained so tender a regard to her memory, that he seldom spake of her but with tears.

The circumstances of the family could be but moderate; and when Mr Warburton had now finished his education at school, he was destined by his friends to that profession which is thought to qualify men best for the management of their own affairs, and which his father had followed with so much credit in that neighbourhood.

He was accordingly put out clerk to Mr Kirke, an eminent attorney of Great Markham in Nottinghamshire, in April, 1714, and continued with that gentleman five years. Tradition does not acquaint us how he acquitted himself in his clerkship. Probably, with no signal assiduity. For now it was that the bent of his genius appeared in a passionate love of reading, which was not lessened, we may believe, but increased, by his want of time and opportunity to indulge it.

However, in spite of his situation, he found means to peruse again

and digest such of the classic authors as he had read at school, with many others which he understood to be in repute with men of learning and judgment. By degrees he also made himself acquainted with the other elementary studies; and, by the time his clerkship was out, had laid the foundation, as well as acquired a taste, of general knowledge.

Still, the opinion and expectation of his friends kept him in that profession to which he had been bred. On the expiration of his clerkship, he returned to his family at Newark; but whether he practised there or elsewhere as an attorney I am not certainly informed. However, the love of letters growing every day stronger in him, it was found advisable to give way to his inclination of taking orders: the rather, as the seriousness of his temper and purity of his morals concurred, with his unappeasable thirst of knowledge, to give the surest presages of future eminence in that profession.

He did not venture, however, all at once to rush into the church. His good understanding, and awful sense of religion, suggested to him the propriety of making the best preparation he could, before he offered himself a candidate for the sacred character. Fortunately for him, his relation, the master of Newark school, was at hand to give him his advice. And he could not have put himself under a better direction. For, besides his classical merit, which was great, he had that of being an excellent divine, and was a truly learned as well as good man.

To him then, as soon as his resolution was taken of going into orders, he applied for assistance, which was afforded him very liberally. "My father," says Mr Archdeacon Warburton in a letter to me, "employed all the time he could spare from his school in instructing him, and used to sit up very late at night with him to assist him in his studies." And this account I have heard confirmed by his pupil himself; who used to enlarge with pleasure on his obligations to his old tutor; and has celebrated his theological and other learning, in a handsome Latin epitaph which he wrote upon him after his death.

At length he was ordained deacon on the 22d of December, 1723, in the cathedral of York, by Archbishop Dawes: and even then he was in no haste to enter into priest's orders, which he deferred taking till he was full twenty-eight years of age, being ordained priest by Bishop Gibson in St Paul's, London, March the 1st, 1726-27.

Some will here lament that the precious interval of nine years, from his quitting school in 1714 to his taking orders, was not spent in one of our universities, rather than his private study, or an attorney's office. And it is certain, the disadvantage to most men would have been great. But an industry and genius like his overcame all difficulties. It may even be conceived that he derived a benefit from them. As his facul

ties were of no common size, his own proper exertion of them probably tended more to his improvement, than any assistance of tutors and colleges could have done. To which we may add that, living by himself, and not having the fashionable opinions of a great society to bias his own, he might acquire an enlarged turn of mind, and strike out for himself, as he clearly did, an original cast both of thought and composition:

"Fastidire lacus et rivos ausus apertos:"

While his superior sense, in the mean time, did the office of that authority which, in general, is found so necessary to quicken the diligence, and direct the judgment, of young students in our universities.

The fact is, that, without the benefit of an academical education, he had qualified himself, in no common degree, for deacon's orders in 1723: and from that time till he took priest's orders in the beginning of the year 1727, he applied himself diligently to complete his studies, and to lay in that fund of knowledge which is requisite to form the consummate divine. For to this character he reasonably aspired-having that ardour of inclination which is the earnest of success, and feeling in himself those powers which invigorate a great mind, and push it on irresistibly in the pursuit of letters.

The fruits of his industry, during this interval, appeared in some pieces composed by him for the improvement of his taste and style, and afterwards printed, most of them without his name, to try the judgment of the public. As he never thought fit to reprint or revise them, they are omitted in this edition. But they are such as did him no discredit; on the contrary, they showed the vigour of his parts, and the more than common hopes which might be entertained of such a writer.

Among these "blossoms of his youth," to borrow an expression from Cowley, were some notes communicated to Mr Theobald, and inserted in his edition of Shakspeare; which seems to have raised a general idea of his abilities, before any more important proof had been given of them. But of this subject more will be said in its place.

It was also in this season of early discipline, while his mind was opening to many literary projects, that he conceived an idea, which he was long pleased with, of giving a new edition of Velleius Paterculus. He was charmed with the elegance of this writer, and the high credit in which emendatory criticism, of which Paterculus stood much in need, was held in the beginning of this century, occasioned by the dazzling reputation of such men as Bentley and Hare, very naturally seduced a young enterprising scholar into an attempt of this nature. How far he proceeded in this work I cannot say: but a specimen of it afterwards appeared in one of our literary journals, and was then communicated to

his friend, Dr Middleton; who advised him very properly to drop the design, "as not worthy of his talents and industry, which," as he says, "instead of trifling on words, seem calculated rather to correct the opinions and manners of the world."

These juvenile essays of his pen, hasty and incorrect as they were, contributed, no doubt, very much to his own improvement. What effect they had on his reputation, and how soon they raised it to a considerable height among his friends, will be seen from the following curious fact.

In the year 1726, a dispute arose among the lawyers about the judicial power of the Court of Chancery. It is immaterial to observe on what points the controversy turned, or with what views it was agitated. It opened with a tract called 'The History of the Chancery; relating to the Judicial Power of that Court, and the Rights of the Master;' printed without a name ; but written, as was generally known, by a Mr Burrough; and so well received by the lord chancellor King, that he rewarded the author of it, the same year, with a mastership in chancery.

To this book an answer presently appeared, under the name of 'A Discourse of the Judicial Authority of the Master of the Rolls;' and so well composed, that they who favoured the cause of the historian, saw it must suffer in his hands, if it were not supported by some better writer than himself, who was evidently no match for the discourser.

In this exigency, he was advised by one of his friends (I forget, or never heard, his name) to have recourse to Mr Warburton, as a person very capable of supplying his defects. Accordingly, when he had prepared the proper materials for a reply, he obtained leave to put them into Mr Warburton's hands, and afterwards spent some time with him in the country; where, by their joint labours, the whole was drawn out, and digested into a sizable volume, which came out in 1727, and was entitled 'The Legal Judicature in Chancery stated.' This book was so manifestly superior to the 'History,' that such of the profession as were not in the secret, wondered at Mr Burrough's proficiency in the art of writing; and the lord chancellor King, as much as anybody. The author of the 'Discourse' saw it concerned him to take notice of such an adversary, and in 1728 reprinted his work with large additions together with a preface, occasioned by a book entitled, The Legal Judicature in Chancery stated.' And with this reply, I believe, the dispute closed.

Many years afterwards, the secret being now of no consequence, Mr Warburton chanced to mention, in conversation, to Mr Charles Yorke, the part he had taken in this squabble: when Mr Yorke smiled, and said he fancied he was not aware who had been his antagonist; and then named his father, the lord chancellor Hardwicke, who, though attorney general at the time, had undertaken to plead the cause of his relation, Sir

Joseph Jekyll, then master of the rolls. But I have dwelt, perhaps, too long on this little anecdote.

Upon Mr Warburton's taking priest's orders, Sir Robert Sutton procured for him the small vicarage of Griesley, in Nottinghamshire; and in 1728, presented him to the rectory of Brand-Broughton, in the diocese of Lincoln. He was also, the same year, and, I suppose, by the same interest, put upon the king's list of master of arts, created on his majesty's visit to the university of Cambridge.

- Brand-Broughton was a preferment of some value, and, from its situation in the neighbourhood of Newark, pleased him very much. Here then he fixed himself, with his family, and spent the best part of his life, that is, from 1728 to 1746.

They who are unacquainted with the enthusiasm which true genius inspires, will hardly conceive the possibility of that intense application, with which Mr Warburton pursued his studies in that retirement. Impatient of any interruptions, he spent the whole of his time that could be spared from the duties of his parish, in reading and writing. His constitution was strong, and his temperance extreme. So that he needed no exercise but that of walking; and a change of reading or study was his only amusement.

His mother and sisters, who lived with him, and were apprehensive of the hurt he might do himself by this continued industry, would invite themselves to drink coffee with him in his study after dinner, and contrive to lengthen their stay with him as much as they could. But when they had retired, they saw no more of him that evening; and his sister, Mrs Frances Warburton, told me, that he usually sat up a great part of the night. What is most extraordinary, the vigour of his parts was such that his incessant labour neither wearied his spirits, nor affected his health.

In this way it was that he acquired that habit of deep thinking, with that extensive erudition, which afterwards astonished the reader in his works; and made himself acquainted with the whole range of polite and elegant learning, in the way of diversion, and in the interval of his graver studies.

I express myself with exact propriety. For it was his manner at this time, and the habit continued with him through life, to intermix his literary pursuits in such sort as to make the lighter relieve the more serious; and these again, in their turn, temper and correct the other. He was passionately fond of the more sublime poets, and, what is very uncommon, had almost an equal relish for works of wit and humour. One or other of these books he had always lying by him, and would take up when he found himself fatigued with study; and, after spending