Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/308

 while acquiring some knowledge of law, developed a voracious appetite for miscellaneous reading. On leaving Kirke in 1719 he returned to Newark, and, according to some accounts, began practice there as an attorney. A statement (ib. 1782, p. 288) that he was for a time a ‘wine merchant’ in the Borough is obviously a blunder. His love of reading was stimulated by his cousin, the schoolmaster, to whom he perhaps acted occasionally as assistant. Warburton often spoke gratefully to Hurd of the benefits derived from this connection, and upon his cousin's death in 1729 composed a very laudatory epitaph, placed in Newark church. Anecdotes are told of his absorption in his studies in early years, which led his companions to take him for a fool, and enabled him to ride past a house on fire without noticing it (, Anecdotes, iii. 353, v. 540; Gent. Mag. 1779, p. 519). He read much theological literature, and decided to take orders. He was ordained deacon on 22 Dec. 1723 by the archbishop of York. In the same year he published his first book, a volume of miscellaneous translations from the Latin. It contains his only attempts at English verse, which, though not so bad as might be expected, may help to explain why he afterwards desired to suppress the book. A Latin dedication to Sir Robert Sutton showed very poor scholarship, though he seems to have afterwards improved his command of the language. Sutton was a cousin of Robert Sutton, second lord Lexington [q. v.], at whose house Warburton met him. Sir Robert had been ambassador at Constantinople through his cousin's influence, and was now member for Nottinghamshire (see Warburton's letter in Works, ed. Courthope, ix. 234;, Baronetage, 1803). He became a useful patron, and obtained for Warburton in 1727 the small living of Greaseley, Nottinghamshire. Warburton was then ordained priest (1 March) by the bishop of London. In June 1728 Sutton presented Warburton to the living of Brant Broughton, near Newark, then worth 560l. a year. He resigned Greaseley, but in 1730 was presented by the Duke of Newcastle to the living of Frisby in Lincolnshire, worth about 250l. a year, which he held without residence till 1756 (, Illustrations, ii. 59, 845). In 1728 the university of Cambridge, through Sutton's influence, gave him the M.A. degree on occasion of the king's visit. Meanwhile Warburton had been making acquaintance (it does not appear by what means) with Matthew Concanen [q. v.], Lewis Theobald [q. v.], and other authors, whom Pope attacked collectively as Grubstreet. Theobald, who was collecting materials for his edition of Shakespeare, applied to Warburton for notes. A long correspondence took place upon this subject between Warburton and Theobald. Theobald's letters (published in Lit. Illustr. vol. ii.) contain some sharp remarks upon Pope, with which Warburton apparently sympathised. Warburton, writing to Concanen (2 Jan. 1727) in regard to Theobald's proposal, incidentally remarked that ‘Dryden borrowed for want of leisure and Pope for want of genius.’ Pope, luckily for Warburton, never knew of this letter, which was first published by Akenside in a note to his ‘Ode to Thomas Edwards.’ In 1727 Warburton gave to Concanen the manuscript of a queer little book upon ‘Prodigies and Miracles.’ Concanen, as he told Hurd in 1757 (Letters from an Eminent Prelate, 1809, p. 218), sold it ‘for more money than you would think.’ Curll afterwards bought the copyright and proposed to reprint it, when Warburton had to buy back his own book. Though anonymous, it was dedicated to Sutton, and contained compliments to George I and the university of Cambridge, which implied willingness to be discovered. Warburton, however, had some reason for the suppression. It is now chiefly remarkable for an audacious plagiarism in which he applies the famous passage in Milton's ‘Areopagitica’ about a ‘noble and puissant nation’ to the university of Cambridge. In 1727 Warburton showed that he had not quite forgotten his law by writing ‘The Legal Judicature in Chancery Stated,’ from materials provided by a barrister, Samuel Burroughs, who was engaged in a controversy as to the respective powers of the court of chancery and the rolls court. Burroughs's antagonist was the attorney-general, Sir Philip Yorke (afterwards Lord Hardwicke), as Warburton was informed by Hardwicke's son Charles [q. v.] Warburton continued to live quietly at Brant Broughton with his mother and sisters. One of the sisters told Hurd that they were alarmed by his excessive application to study. He generally sat up for a great part of the night, and sought relief only by alternating studies of poetry and lighter literature with his more serious reading. He carried on a correspondence with William Stukeley [q. v.], the antiquary, who from 1726 lived in his part of the country; and was afterwards in communication with Peter Des Maizeaux [q. v.] and Thomas Birch [q. v.] upon literary