es of the human mind, is often indulged at the
very moment it is decried and complained of.

But we must not leave this great man without some notice of that
peculiar style of controversy which he adopted, and which may be
distinguished among our LITERARY QUARRELS. He has left his name to a
school--a school which the more liberal spirit of the day we live in
would not any longer endure. Who has not heard of THE WARBURTONIANS?

That SECRET PRINCIPLE which directed Warburton in all his works, and
which we have attempted to pursue, could not of itself have been
sufficient to have filled the world with the name of Warburton. Other
scholars have published reveries, and they have passed away, after
showing themselves for a time, leaving no impression; like those
coloured and shifting shadows on a wall, with which children are
amused; but Warburton was a literary Revolutionist, who, to maintain a
new order of things, exercised all the despotism of a perpetual
dictator. The bold unblushing energy which could lay down the most
extravagant positions, was maintained by a fierce dogmatic spirit, and
by a peculiar style of mordacious contempt and intolerant insolence,
beating down his opponents from all quarters with an animating shout
of triumph, to encourage those more serious minds, who, overcome by
his genius, were yet often alarmed by the ambiguous tendency of his
speculations.[182]

The Warburtonian School was to be supported by the most licentious
principles; by dictatorial arrogance,[183] by gross invective, and by
airy sarcasm;[184] the bitter contempt which, with its many little
artifices, lowers an adversary in the public opinion, was more
peculiarly the talent of one of the aptest scholars, the cool, the
keen, the sophistical Hurd. The lowest arts of confederacy were
connived at by all the disciples,[185] prodigal of praise to
themselves, and retentive of it to all others; the world was to be
divided into two parts, the _Warburtonians_ and the _Anti_.

To establish this new government in the literary world, this great
Revolutionist was favoured by Fortune with two important aids; the one
was a _Machine_, by which he could wield public opinion; and the other
a _Man_, who seemed born to be his minister or his viceroy.

The _machine_ was nothing less than the immortal works of Pope; as
soon as Warburton had obtained a royal patent to secure to himself the
sole property of Pope's works, the public were compelled, under