Of all the Editors of Pope, Warburton appears to be the only one who undertook that office with a disposition favourable to the fame and character of the author. His first exertions in the illustration and defence of the works of Pope were entirely voluntary, and the sincerity and ability they displayed induced Pope to solicit his acquaintance and friendship, which continued uninterrupted from the year 1739 to the time of Pope's death; when, to the great disappointment of Lord Bolingbroke, Pope left to Warburton all the property in his printed works. This, however, was but a trivial favour compared with the service rendered him by Pope in introducing him to the acquaintance of Mr. Allen, who gave him his niece in marriage, provided him with a residence at Prior Park, and by his solicitations and influence with the Minister, eventually obtained for him the see of Gloucester. Of this extraordinary character, which seems to have had little resemblance to that of any other literary man, a further account will be found in the Life of Pope, prefixed to this edition. The high sense which Pope entertained of the services rendered him by Warburton is manifest from the following Letters, in which Pope sometimes pours out compliments and makes acknowledgments which, if somewhat overstrained, show at least his anxiety that his writings should be understood in the light in which Warburton has represented them, as being favourable to the cause of religion and virtue. If he could have foreseen, that in future editions of his works the explanations of Warburton would be discarded, and a series of remarks substituted in their place, tending to charge the author with irreligion and infidelity, it would have embittered his last moments, and added poignancy to the agonies of death. LETTERS ΤΟ WILLIAM WARBURTON, D.D. LETTER I. April 11, 1739. I HAVE just received from Mr. R. two more of your letters. It is in the greatest hurry imaginable that I write this; but I cannot help thanking you in particular for your third letter, which is so extremely clear, short, and full, that I think Mr. Crousaz 2 ought never to have another answer, and deserved not so good a one. I can only say, you do him too much honour, and me too much right, so odd as the expression seems, for you have made my system as clear as I ought to have done, and could not. It is indeed the same system as mine, but illustrated with a ray of your own, as they say our natural body is the same still when it is glorified. I am sure I like it better than I did before, and so will every man else. I know I meant just what you explain, but I did not explain my own meaning so well as you. You understand me as well as I do myself, but you express me better than I could 1 Commentaries on the Essay on Man.—Warburton. A Swiss professor who wrote remarks upon the philosophy of that Essay. Warburton. 3 From Cowley to Sir W. Davenant : So will our God re-build man's perish'd frame, And raise him up much better, yet the same!-Warton. express myself. Pray accept the sincerest acknowledgments. I cannot but wish these letters were put together in one book, and intend (with your leave) to procure a translation of part at least, or of all of them into French; but I shall not proceed a step without your consent and opinion, &c. LETTER II. May 26, 1739. THE dissipation in which I am obliged to live, through many degrees of civil obligation, which ought not to rob a man of himself who passes for an independent one, and yet make me every body's servant more than my own, this, Sir, is the occasion of my silence to you, to whom I really have more obligation than to almost any man. By writing, indeed, I proposed no more than to tell you my sense of it: as to any corrections of your letters, I could make none, but what resulted from inverting the order of them, and those expressions relating to myself which I thought exaggerated. I could not find a word to alter in the last letter, which I returned immediately to the bookseller. I must particularly thank you for the mention you have made of me in your Postscript to the last 4 When it is recollected that the observations of Warburton on the Essay on Man, all tend to show that the poem, so far from being favourable to the cause of infidelity, is intended to inculcate the doctrine of a future state, and to promote the interests of true religion and Christian charity, we cannot but be surprised at the attempts that have been made to demonstrate that this is an infidel poem, and that Pope did not believe in a future state; in contradiction not only to the intrinsic evidence of the work itself, but to the solemn asseverations of the author, as contained in this and the following letters; in which he not only adopts the interpretation of Warburton, but admits that he has illustrated the subject in such a manner as to render it still more clear even to the author himself. 5 He means, a Vindication of the Author of the Divine Legation, against some papers in the Weekly Miscellany; in which the editor applied to himself those lines in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot: Me let the tender office long engage, &c.-Warburton. |