who bestowed
on him a rich wife, by whom he secured a fine mansion; till at
length, the mitre crowned his last ambition. Such was the large
chapter of accidents in Warburton's life!

There appears in Warburton's conduct respecting the editions of the
great poets which he afterwards published, something systematic; he
treated the several editors of those very poets, THEOBALD, HANMER,
and GREY, who were his friends, with the same odd sort of kindness:
when he was unknown to the world, he cheerfully contributed to all
their labours, and afterwards abused them with the liveliest
severity.[173] It is probable that he had himself projected these
editions as a source of profit, but had contributed to the more
advanced labours of his rival editors, merely as specimens of his
talent, that the public might hereafter be thus prepared for his
own more perfect commentaries.

Warburton employed no little art[174] to excite the public curiosity
respecting his future Shakspeare: he liberally presented Dr. BIRCH
with his MS. notes for that great work the "General Dictionary," no
doubt as the prelude of his after-celebrated edition. Birch was here
only a dupe: he escaped, unlike Theobald, Hanmer, and Grey, from being
overwhelmed with ridicule and contempt. When these extraordinary
specimens of emendatory and illustrative criticism appeared in the
"General Dictionary," with general readers they excited all the
astonishment of perfect novelty. It must have occurred to them, that
no one as yet had understood Shakspeare; and, indeed, that it required
no less erudition than that of the new luminary now rising in the
critical horizon to display the amazing erudition of this most
recondite poet. Conjectural criticism not only changed the words but
the thoughts of the author; perverse interpretations of plain matters.
Many a striking passage was wrested into a new meaning: plain words
were subtilised to remove conceits; here one line was rejected, and
there an interpolation, inspired alone by critical sagacity, pretended
to restore a lost one; and finally, a source of knowledge was opened
in the notes, on subjects which no other critic suspected could, by
any ingenuity, stand connected with Shakspeare's text.

At length the memorable edition appeared: all the world knows its
chimeras.[175] One of its most remarkable results was the production
of that work, which annihilated the whimsical labours of Warburton,
Edwards's "Canons of Criticism,