rton's paradox on Eloquence; his levity of ideas
renders his sincerity suspected--Leland refutes the whimsical
paradox--Hurd attacks Leland--Leland's noble triumph--Warburton's
SECRET PRINCIPLE operating in Modern Literature: on Pope's Essay on
Man--Lord Bolingbroke the author of the Essay--Pope received
Warburton as his tutelary genius--Warburton's systematic treatment
of his friends and rival editors--his literary artifices and little
intrigues--his Shakspeare--the whimsical labours of Warburton on
Shakspeare annihilated by Edwards's "Canons of Criticism"--Warburton
and Johnson--Edwards and Warburton's mutual attacks--the concealed
motive of his edition of Shakspeare avowed in his justification--his
SECRET PRINCIPLE further displayed in Pope's Works--attacks Akenside;
Dyson's generous defence--correct Ridicule is a test of Truth,
illustrated by a well-known case--Warburton a literary
revolutionist; aimed to be a perpetual dictator--the ambiguous
tendency of his speculations--the Warburtonian School supported by
the most licentious principles--specimens of its peculiar style--the
use to which Warburton applied the Dunciad--his party: attentive to
raise recruits--the active and subtle Hurd--his extreme
sycophancy--Warburton, to maintain his usurped authority, adopted
his system of literary quarrels.

The name of WARBURTON is more familiar to us than his works: thus was
it early,[141] thus it continues, and thus it will be with posterity!
The cause may be worth our inquiry. Nor is there, in the whole compass
of our literary history, a character more instructive for its
greatness and its failures; none more adapted to excite our curiosity,
and which can more completely gratify it.

Of great characters, whose actions are well known, and of those who,
whatever claim they may have to distinction, are not so, ARISTOTLE has
delivered a precept with his accustomed sagacity. If _Achilles_, says
the Stagirite, be the subject of our inquiries, since all know what he
has done, we are simply to indicate his actions, without stopping to
detail; but this would not serve for _Critias_; for whatever relates
to him must be fully told, since he is known to few;[142]--a critical
precept, which ought to be frequently applied in the composition of
this work.

The history of Warburton is now well known; the facts lie dispersed in
the chronological biographer;[143] but the secret connexion which
ex