cation of a reply; but the nobler
part of the triumph was, the assistance he lent to the circulation of
Hurd's letter, by reprinting it with his own reply, to accompany a
new edition of his "Dissertation on Eloquence."[170]

We now pursue the SECRET PRINCIPLE, operating on lighter topics; when,
turning commentator, with the same originality as when an author, his
character as a literary adventurer is still more prominent, extorting
double senses, discovering the most fantastical allusions, and making
men of genius but of confined reading, learned, with all the lumber of
his own unwieldy erudition.

When the German professor CROUSAZ published a rigid examen of the
doctrines in POPE'S "Essay on Man," Warburton volunteered a defence of
Pope. Some years before, it appears that Warburton himself, in a
literary club at Newark, had produced a dissertation against those
very doctrines! where he asserted that "the Essay was collected from
the worst passages of the worst authors." This probably occurred at
the time he declared that Pope had no genius! BOLINGBROKE really WROTE
the "Essay on Man," which Pope _versified_.[171] His principles may be
often objectionable; but those who only read this fine philosophical
poem for its condensed verse, its imagery, and its generous
sentiments, will run no danger from a metaphysical system they will
not care to comprehend.

But this serves not as an apology for Warburton, who now undertook an
elaborate defence of what he had himself condemned, and for which
purpose he has most unjustly depressed Crousaz--an able logician, and
a writer ardent in the cause of religion. This commentary on the
"Essay on Man," then, looks much like the work of a sophist and an
adventurer! Pope, who was now alarmed at the tendency of some of those
principles he had so innocently versified, received Warburton as his
tutelary genius. A mere poet was soon dazzled by the sorcery of
erudition; and he himself, having nothing of that kind of learning,
believed Warburton to be the Scaliger of the age, for his gratitude
far exceeded his knowledge.[172] The poet died in this delusion: he
consigned his immortal works to the mercy of a ridiculous commentary
and a tasteless commentator, whose labours have cost so much pains to
subsequent editors to remove. Yet from this moment we date the worldly
fortunes of Warburton.--Pope presented him with the entire property of
his works; introduced him to a blind and obedient patron,