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He presented to Mr. Warton a copy of “ Pierce the Plowman's Crede" (which had been the property of Mr. Pope *, who with his own hand had inserted an abstract of the plan†); obligingly condescended to point out to him the source to which many of the Romances of the Fourteenth Century owed their existence; and afterwards

* Mr. Fope presented to Mr. West a copy of Hall's Virgedemarium, printed by Harrison, 1529-1602; telling him, that "he esteemed them the best poetry and truest satire in the English language, and that he had an intention of modernizing them, as he had done some of Dr. Donne's."-This copy, No. 1047 in his Catalogue, was bought by T. Payne for 18s. Mr. Gough, MS.

† "An ignorant plain man, having learned his Pater-noster and Ave-mary, wants to learn his Creed. He asks several religious men of the several Orders to teach it him. First of a Friar Minor, who bids him beware of the Carmelites, and assures him they can teach him nothing, describing their faults, &c.; but that the Friars Minors shall save him, whether he learns his Creed or not. He goes next to the Friars Preachers, whose magnificent monastery he describes: there he meets a fat friar, who declaims against the Augustines. He is shocked at his

pride, and goes to the Augustines. They rail at the Minorites. He goes to the Carmes; they abuse the Dominicans, but promise him salvation, without the Creed, for money. He leaves them with indignation, and finds an honest poor Plowman in the field, and tells him how he was disappointed by the four Orders. The Plowman answers with a long invective against them."

History of English Poetry, vol. I. p. 287. "Montfaucon, in his Monumens de la Monarchie François, has printed the Statuts de l'Ordre du Saint Esprit au droit desir ou du Noeud etabli par Louis d'Anjou roi de Jerusalem et Sicile en 1352-3-4. tom ii. p. 329. This was an annual celebration au Chastel de l'Euf enchanti du marveilleux peril. The castle, as appears by the monuments which accompany these statutes, was built at the foot of the obscure grot of the Enchantments of Virgil. The statutes are as extraordinary as if they had been drawn up by Don Quixote himself, or his assessors the Curate and the Barber. From the seventh chapter we learn, that the knights who came to this yearly festival at the chatel de l'euf, were obliged to deliver in writing to the clerks of the chapel of the castle their yearly adventures. Such of these histories as were thought worthy to be recorded, the clerks are ordered to transeribe in a book, which was called Le livre des avenements aux chevaliers, &c. Et demerra le dit livre toujours en la dicte chapelle. This sacred register certainly furnished from time to time ample materials to the Romance-writers. And this circumstance gives a new explanation to a reference which we so frequently find in Romances: I mean, that appeal which they so constantly make to some authentic record." ~ Ibid, vol. I. p. 335.

shewed

shewed the most generous intention of promoting his interest *.

*The following letters, preserved by Dr. Wooll, are a sufficient proof of this assertion.

1. To the Rev. THOMAS WARTON.

"DEAR SIR, Prior Park, Sept 27, 1768. "I believe this post will bring you two letters together from me-the first was written yesterday; and to-day brought me the inclosed from the Duke of Grafton. - You will find things go their usual train, to the exclusion of superior merit. The Duke and I give one another good words; they are all I expect from Courts; and they are more than Courts have any reason to expect from me. The only not unpleasing circumstance in my disappointment is, that it has afforded me an opportunity of shewing how much I am, dear Sir, Your faithful friend, &c. W. GLOUCESTER."

2. To the Rev. THOMAS WARTON.

"SIR, Grosvenor-square, Sept. 22, 1768. "I should with great pleasure have laid before the King your request to succeed to the Professorship of Modern History at Oxford, if I had not known that it was His Majesty's intention to confer it on another gentleman. The character you bear in the world, and the just pretensions you have to such a mark of distinction and favour, would, I am persuaded, have justified any steps I might have taken towards forwarding your wishes on this occasion. I am, Sir, Your most obedient, &c. GRAFTON.” 3. To the BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER.

"MY LORD, Grosvenor-square, Sept. 23, 1769. "I am honoured with your Lordship's letter, and am sorry that Mr. Warton, whose merit your Lordship so fairly states, cannot on this occasion meet with that success which he is equally with any one entitled to. Many of his Majesty's servants, who had supported with their votes Mr. Vivian on a former occasion for a Professorship at Oxford, joined early their solicitations in his favour for the vacant one of Modern History. This gentleman has undertaken to hold it on terms stipulated by the Vice-Chancellor, as the King had signified his intentions that this office should never any more be held as a sinecure. Though I have not the honour to be personally acquainted with your Lordship, yet allow me to say that this recommendation, from a person so eminent for his great knowledge as well as taste in literature, could not fail of having the greatest weight with me, who have the honour to be, my Lord, with the truest esteem and regard, Your Lordship's most obedient, &c. GRAFTON." Again we find Bp. Warburton active, but with no better success, in a Letter to Archbishop Cornwallis.

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"MY LORD,

Jan. 25, 1770.

My zeal for the interest of letters occasions your Grace this trouble. You may remember that last year I told your

Grace

Some curious historical particulars relating to the impeachment of Lord Keeper Finch, copied by Bp.

Grace that I interested myself very much in behalf of a very eminent person, Mr. T. Warton, of Trinity College in Oxford, one of the candidates for the Professorship of Modern History in that University; Mr. Vivian, for whom it was designed, hesitating on the terms; and that, though a stranger to the Duke of Grafton, I had taken the liberty to acquaint his Grace with the character of Mr. Warton; presuming I was in order, as a Bishop, to acquaint the First Minister with a matter that merely regarded the advancement of Literature. This I then told your Grace; and you was so good to assure me that you would second my endeavours. Mr. Vivian is now dead; and your Grace's powerful recommendation of this very learned man will be of the greatest service to him; and give the greatest pleasure to,

My good Lord, &c. W. GLOUCESTER."

The following letters on the same subject are all addressed to Mr. Thomas Warton.

"DEAR SIR,

Grosvenor-square, Jan. 29, 1770.

"I shall be very happy if the enclosed note, which flatters me so much, be the means of my procuring this Lectureship for you. I suppose I shall soon hear the King's pleasure-who is much set upon abolishing the scandal of the sinecure. I have assured the Ministry that I know of none so capable, nor none so willing as yourself to comply with his Majesty's purpose in this matter. Dear Sir, most affectionately yours, W. GLOUCESTER. "P.S. Since writing the above, I dined with Lord Mansfield; and he told me that Dr. Markham, Dean of Christ Church, had solicited the Archbishop, in favour of (I suppose) some Westminster man or other."

"DEAR SIR,

Grosvenor-square, Feb. 14, 1770. “I have the favour of yours of the 12th this evening. You did well in getting the best intelligence you could from Lord Abingdon, concerning Mr. Vivian's views. Lord Abingdon certainly pushed his friend's affair with the Ministry very lately; which confirms me in my suspicion, that in the midst of all this confusion, they are in hopes that the Professorship may return back again to a sinecure. If the King be true to his purpose, they will be deceived. But we must be upon the qui vive. I shall be at the House to-morrow, and have hopes of seeing both the Archbishop and Duke of Grafton there. Were I now soliciting for some worthless fellow, I might safely trust to Courts to do after their kind. But the Great are as backward in paying their court to Prince Posterity, as if they expected nothing from him. Apropos: you did extremely right in applying to Lord North. I am, dear Sir, your very affectionate friend and faithful servant, W. GLOUCESTER."

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"DEAR

Warburton from a MS History of the Rebellion, are printed in Seward's "Anecdotes," vol. I. p. 377.

"DEAR SIR,

Grosvenor-square, Feb. 15, 1770.

"I have just now received your favour of the 14th. You will It is as clear allow me to be, if no prophet, yet a good guesser. as the day that Vivian hangs on the Professorship, in hopes that these distracted times, and a shifting Ministry, will throw it into his hands without the burthen. Your only hope now is the steadiness of the King's purpose.-I went, as I told you I would, to the House. I missed the Duke of Grafton, but found the Archbishop there. I acquainted him with the contents of yours -Said of the 12th. He renewed his promises of zeal to serve methat Vivian had got another Lord to solicit in his favour-I have forgot his name; and it is no matter. If Vivian will read Lectures as required, without doubt he will have the Professorship. If he will not read, and declines the condition, and the King insists on the performance, you will have it. If the report of Vivian's But I am afraid death had been true, I had secured it for you.

one disinterested man will never be suffered by Fortune to serve another. However, I will prevent, if possible, that neither Vivian nor his friends, with all their arts, play us a trick in this matter, by urging the Duke's honour home to him. I am, dear Sir, Your very affectionate and faithful servant, W. GLOUCESTER." "DEAR SIR, Grosvenor-square, Feb. 22, 1770. "I have the favour of yours of the 21st. You are a Philosopher, as appears by your contempt of the caprice of Fortune; and if one Philosopher may claim the assistance of another, you have a right to my services, were it only for the heroically bearing your disappointment; when, had your first intelligence been true, you had been settled in your Professorship by this time. call it yours, because I have a strong fancy it will be so ere long. I am told from good hands that Vivian has an ulcer in his bladder, which is likely to prove fatal to him in a short time. I am, with the truest attachment,

Your affectionate friend and humble servant,

I

W. GLOUCESTER." "DEAR SIR, Grosvenor-square, March 13, 1771. "I was favoured with yours of yesterday this morning. I take it for granted you was grown very indifferent to this Professorship, or that you would have seen me on Sunday (I was only gone to Chapel) that I might have wrote immediately to the Duke of Grafton, who had actually got the thing for you of the King, in the supposition of the death of Vivian. That report proved false. So our labour was to begin again. But, as I now understand Vivian lay a-dying for some time, that was the time when you should have begun your new application. You sat out, in every sense, too late. I went to the House immediately on the receipt of your letter, to look out for the Duke of Grafton; but, instead of him, I met Dr. Markhamn, the new Bishop; and VOL. V. he

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They were found in a large volume, all in Lord Clarendon's hand-writing, which contains the private Memoirs of his own life, as well as the public History which was extracted from this volume *.

"Few characters have been more generally misunderstood. In his temper he was generous and manly, and above all mean resentment; in his carriage, both as a man and a bishop, he was entirely free from that superciliousness which marks his writings, the habit of which was probably acquired in the Bentleian School. His genius and learning will need no panegyrist. There are, in every age, a class of fashionable, ephemeridal writers, who swim about, not ungracefully, on the surface of literature, like pretty school-boys; but never venture to dive in search of unsunned treasures; Bp. Warburton was not of this class; his name and his writings will be had in remembrance, when the names and writings of his cavillers and adversaries shall be quietly interred with those bishops, deans, and dignitaries, their predecessors, who, after having strutted and fretted their little hour, now sleep in peace in the pages of a Godwin or a Richardson."

he told me that North, the Dean of Canterbury, told him (the truth of which you depended on) that your Chancellor had got the Professorship for Nowel, the head of one of your Halls. And this must have been before you waited on his Lordship, who received you in so very obliging a manner-Such are the civilities of Lords! The Dean of Canterbury told the Bishop of Chester farther, that Lord North was extremely well disposed towards you. -I believe I am more vexed and disappointed than you are; and not a little of my vexation falls upon yourself; or, at least, would fall, did I not think you must needs be very indifferent about the matter. Perhaps, all things considered, you may have good reason for being so. I have your interest so much at heart, that nothing but that could console me for your ill luck. You are one of those few who, if they cannot command success, have the pleasing consciousness of deserving it. Dear Sir, in all fortunes, Most cordially and faithfully yours, W. GLOUCESTER."

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*The particulars were presented to Mr. Seward by Dr. Balguy, who received the copy from Bp. Warburton.

** Two or three Extracts from Bp. Warburton's Letters have been repeated in pp. 166 and 546; but they are applicable in both cases.

No. XII.

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