s "a wine-merchant in the
Borough," and rose into notice as "the orator of a disputing club;"
but, in all his shapes, still keen in literary pursuits, without
literary connexions; struggling with all the defects of a desultory
and self-taught education, but of a bold aspiring character, he
rejected, either in pride or in despair, his little trades, and took
Deacon's orders--to exchange a profession, unfavourable to continuity
of study, for another more propitious to its indulgence.[149] In a
word, he set off as a literary adventurer, who was to win his way by
earning it from patronage.

His first mischances were not of a nature to call forth that
intrepidity which afterwards hardened into the leading feature of his
character. Few great authors have begun their race with less
auspicious omens, though an extraordinary event in the life of an
author happened to Warburton--he had secured a patron before he was an
author.

The first publication of his which we know, was his "Translations in
Prose and Verse from Roman Poets, Orators, and Historians." 1724. He
was then about twenty-five years of age. The fine forms of classic
beauty could never be cast in so rough a mould as his prose; and his
turgid unmusical verses betrayed qualities of mind incompatible with
the delicacy of poetry. Four years afterwards he repeated another
bolder attempt, in his "Critical and Philosophical Inquiry into the
Causes of Prodigies and Miracles." After this publication, I wonder
Warburton was ever suspected of infidelity or even scepticism.[150] So
radically deficient in Warburton was that fine internal feeling which
we call taste, that through his early writings he acquired not one
solitary charm of diction,[151] and scarcely betrayed, amid his
impurity of taste, that nerve and spirit which afterwards crushed all
rival force. His translations _in imitation of Milton's style_ betray
his utter want of ear and imagination. He attempted to suppress both
these works during his lifetime.

When these unlucky productions were republished by Dr. Parr, the
_Dedications_ were not forgotten; they were both addressed to the same
opulent baronet, not omitting "the virtues" of his lady the Countess
of Sunderland, whose marriage he calls "so divine a union." Warburton
had shown no want of judgment in the choice of his patrons; for they
had more than one living in their gift--and perhaps, knowing his
patrons, none in the dedications themselves. They had, how