Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/312

 tion’ became his ‘ordinary places of literary executions.’ In 1761 he put up in Twickenham church a tablet in memory of Pope, with a verse in very bad taste, though Pope himself had directed that the only inscription to his memory should be a line added on to the tablet to his parents.

Warburton published a few sermons during the ‘unnatural rebellion’ of 1745. His next conspicuous performance was the edition of Shakespeare which appeared in 1747. In 1737 Warburton had told Birch that he intended such an edition after he had finished the ‘Divine Legation.’ He went on to say that Sir Thomas Hanmer [q. v.] had ‘done great things’ for Shakespeare, and appears to imply that he was to co-operate with Hanmer and write a critical preface. Notices of the forthcoming edition appeared in the ‘General Dictionary’ and the ‘Works of the Learned.’ A letter from Sherlock and Hare in 1739 (, Selections, pp. 84, 121) shows that Warburton had then complained that he could not get his papers back from Hanmer. Hanmer himself, writing in 1742 to Joseph Smith (1670–1756) [q. v.], provost of Queen's College, Oxford, to offer his edition to the university of Oxford, said that Warburton had been introduced to him by Sherlock in order to suggest some observations upon Shakespeare. After some communications Hanmer discovered that Warburton wished to publish the edition himself. Hanmer would not consent, and Warburton thereupon left him in a ‘great rage.’ One Philip Nichols wished in 1761 to insert this letter in a life of Smith in the ‘Biographia Britannica.’ He submitted a proof to Warburton, who was indignant, and declared that Hanmer's letter was ‘a falsehood from beginning to end.’ He declared that Hanmer had made the first overtures to him, and had afterwards made unauthorised use of his notes. Although the sheet containing Hanmer's letter had already been printed, the proprietors of the ‘Biographia’ yielded at last to pressure from Warburton, and reprinted it so as to omit the letter. Nichols in 1763 told the story in a pamphlet called ‘the castrated letter of Sir T. Hanmer.’ Nichols was a man of bad character who had been expelled from Cambridge for stealing books. His story, however, was not contradicted, and the presumption is in favour of Hanmer's account of his intercourse with Warburton.

In his preface to the ‘Shakespeare’ Warburton spoke with contempt both of Hanmer and his old friend Theobald, and accused both of stealing some of his conjectures. He admitted that Theobald had ‘punctiliously collated old books,’ but accused him of ignorance of the language and want of critical sagacity. It is now admitted that this is a ludicrous inversion of the truth [see under ], and that Theobald was incomparably superior to Warburton as a Shakespearean critic. Though a few of Warburton's emendations have been accepted, they are generally marked by both audacious and gratuitous quibbling, and show his real incapacity for the task. Though this was less obvious at the time, a telling exposure was made by Thomas Edwards [q. v.] in ‘a supplement’ to Warburton's edition, called in later editions ‘Canons of Criticism.’ Johnson (, ed. Birkbeck Hill, i. 263 n.) compared Edwards to a fly stinging a stately horse; but the sting was sharp, and the ‘Canons of Criticism’ is perhaps the best result of Warburton's enterprise. Warburton could only retort by insulting Edwards in notes to Pope's ‘Works,’ and saying that he was not a gentleman. Another quarrel arose with Zachary Grey [q. v.], to whose ‘Hudibras’ Warburton had contributed notes. In his preface he now, for some reason, called the same book an execrable heap of nonsense, when Grey retorted by three pamphlets against Warburton's ‘Shakespeare.’ Other critics were John Upton, in ‘Critical Observations on Shakespeare’ (2nd edit. 1748), and Benjamin Heath [q. v.], in a ‘Revisal of Shakespeare's Text’ (1766). When Johnson, in his ‘Shakespeare,’ mixed some blame with some high praise, Warburton wrote to Hurd complaining of his critic's insolence, malignity, and folly. Johnson had much respect for Warburton, who sent him a word of approval upon his refusal to accept Chesterfield's patronage (, i. 263). They only met once, when Warburton began by looking surlily at Johnson, but ended by ‘patting’ him (ib. iv. 47, 48, see also v. 80).

Warburton returned to his theological inquiries in 1750. His former friend, Middleton, had attacked his evidence for the later miracles in his ‘Free Inquiry’ (1749). Warburton tried to show in his ‘Julian’ (1750) that there was at least sufficient evidence for the story of the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem when Julian attempted to rebuild it. He argues at the same time, by the help of some curious reading, that some of the concomitant circumstances, especially the appearance of crosses on the garments of the spectators, were purely natural. The book was less arrogant in tone than some others, perhaps because revised before publication by his new friend Hurd. It was well received in France, as was shown by a letter from the Duc de Noailles. Montesquieu also, in a letter to Charles Yorke, politely