and hurried articulation, which was peculiarly unfavourable to his pulpit oratory. His ambition was directed to other objects, than preferment in the church, and he was above solicitation. After having served the curacy of Woodstock for nine years, as well as his avocations would permit, he was appointed, in 1774, to the small living of Kiddington, in Oxfordshire; and, in 1785, to the donative of Hill Farrance, in Somersetshire, by his own college.

The great work to which the studies of his life were subservient, was his "History of English Poetry," an undertaking which had been successively projected by Pope and Gray. Those writers had suggested the imposing plan of arranging the British poets, not by their chronological succession, but by their different schools. Warton deliberately relinquished this scheme; because he felt that it was impracticable, except in a very vague and general manner. Poetry is of too spiritual a nature, to admit of its authors being exactly grouped, by a Linnæan system of classification. Striking resemblances and distinctions will, no doubt, be found among poets; but the shades of variety and gradation are so infinite, that to bring every composer within a given line of resemblance, would require a new language in the philosophy of taste. Warton, therefore, adopted the simpler idea of tracing our poetry by its chronological progress. The work is certainly provokingly digressive, in many places, and those who have subsequently examined the same subject have often complained of

its inaccuracies; but the chief cause of those inaccuracies was that boldness and extent of research, which makes the work so useful and entertaining. Those who detected his mistakes have been, in no small degree, indebted to him for their power of detecting them. The first volume of his History appeared in 1774; the second in 1778; and the third in 1781. Of the fourth volume only a few sheets were printed; and the account of our poetry, which he meant to have extended to the last century, was continued only to the reign of Elizabeth.

In the year 1785, he was appointed to the Camden Professorship of History, in which situation he delivered only one inaugural dissertation. In the same year, upon the death of Whitehead, he received the laureateship. His odes were subjected to the ridicule of the Rolliad; but his head filled the laurel with more learning than it had encompassed for 100 years.

In his sixty-second year, after a life of uninterrupted good health, he was attacked by the gout; went to Bath for a cure, and returned, as he imagined, perfectly recovered; but his appearance betrayed that his constitution had received a fatal shock. At the close of an evening, which he had spent with more than ordinary cheerfulness, in the common-hall of his college, he was seized with a paralytic stroke, and expired on the following day.

Some amusing eccentricities of his character are

mentioned by the writer of his life (Dr. Mant), which the last editor of the British Poets blames that biographer for introducing. I am far from joining in this censure. It is a miserable system of biography, that would never allow us to smile at the foibles and peculiarities of its subject. The historian of English poetry would sometimes forget his own dignity, so far as to drink ale, and smoke tobacco with men of vulgar condition; either wishing, as some have gravely alleged, to study undisguised and unlettered human nature, or, which is more proba ble, to enjoy a heartier laugh, and broader humour than could be found in polite society. He was also passionately fond (not of critical, but) of military reviews, and delighted in martial music. The same strength of association which made him enjoy the sound of the spirit-stirring drum," led him to be a constant and curious explorer of the architectural monuments of chivalrous times; and, during his summer excursions into the country, he always committed to paper the remarks which he had made on ancient buildings. During his visits to his brother, Dr. J. Warton, the reverend professor became an associate and confidant in all the sports of the schoolboys. When engaged with them in some culinary occupation, and when alarmed by the sudden approach of the master, he has been known to hide himself in a dark corner of the kitchen; and has been dragged from thence by the Doctor, who had

taken him for some great boy. He also used to help the boys in their exercises, generally putting in as many faults, as would disguise the assistance.

Every Englishman who values the literature of his country, must feel himself obliged to Warton as a poetical antiquary. As a poet, he is ranked by his brother Joseph in the school of Spenser and Milton; but this classification can only be admitted with a full understanding of the immense distance between him and his great masters. He had, indeed," spelt the fabled rhyme;" he abounds in allusions to the romantic subjects of Spenser, and he is a sedulous imitator of the rich lyrical manner of Milton: but of the tenderness and peculiar harmony of Spenser he has caught nothing; and in his resemblance to Milton, he is the heir of his phraseology more than his spirit. His imitation of manner, however, is not confined to Milton. His style often exhibits a very composite order of poetical architecture. In his verses to Sir Joshua Reynolds, for instance, he blends the point and succinctness of Pope, with the richness of the elder and more fanciful school. It is one of his happiest compositions; and, in this case, the intermixture of styles has no unpleasing effect. In others, he often tastelessly and elaborately unites his affectation of antiquity, with the case-hardened graces of modern polish.

If we judge of him by the character of the majority of his pieces, I believe that fifty out of sixty of them

are such, that we should not be anxious to give them a second perusal. From that proportion of his works, I conceive that an unprejudiced reader would pronounce him a florid, unaffecting describer, whose images are plentifully scattered, but without selection or relief. To confine our view, however, to some seven or eight of his happier pieces, we shall find, in these, a considerable degree of graphic power, of fancy, and animation. His "Verses to Sir Joshua Reynolds" are splendid and spirited. There is also a softness and sweetness in his ode entitled "The Hamlet," which is the more welcome, for being rare in his productions; and his “Crusade,” and “Grave of Arthur," have a genuine air of martial and minstrel enthusiasm. Those pieces exhibit, to the best advantage, the most striking feature of his poetical character, which was a fondness for the recollections of chivalry, and a minute intimacy of imagination with its gorgeous residences, and imposing spectacles. The spirit of chivalry, he may indeed be said, to have revived in the poetry of modern times. His memory was richly stored with all the materials for description, that can be got from books; and he seems not to have been without an original enthusiasm for those objects, which excite strong associations of regard and wonder. Whether he would have ever looked with interest on a shepherd's cottage, if he had not found it described by Virgil or Theocritus,