slated into plain English, in "Remarks
on Dr. Warburton's Account of the Sentiments of the Early
Jews," 1757; and the following rules for all who dissented
from Warburton are deduced:--"You must not write on the same
subject that he does. You must not glance at his arguments,
even without naming him or so much as referring to him. If you
find his reasonings ever so faulty, you must not presume to
furnish him with better of your own, even though you prove,
and are desirous to support his conclusions. When you design
him a compliment, you must express it in full form, and with
all the circumstance of panegyrical approbation, without
impertinently qualifying your civilities by assigning a reason
why you think he deserves them, as this might possibly be
taken for a hint that you know something of the matter he is
writing about as well as himself. You must never call any of
his _discoveries_ by the name of _conjectures_, though you
allow them their full proportion of elegance, learning, &c.;
for you ought to know that this capital genius never proposed
anything to the judgment of the public (though ever so new and
uncommon) with diffidence in his life. Thus stands the decree
prescribing our demeanour towards this sovereign in the
Republic of Letters, as we find it promulged, and bearing date
at the palace of Lincoln's Inn, Nov. 25, 1755."--From whence
Hurd's "Seventh Dissertation" was dated.

[166] Gibbon's "Critical Observations on the Design of the Sixth Book
of the AEneid." Dr. Parr considers this clear, elegant, and
decisive work of criticism, as a complete refutation of
Warburton's discovery.

[167] It is curious enough to observe that Warburton himself,
acknowledging this to be a paradox, exultingly exclaims,
"Which, _like so many others_ I have had the ODD FORTUNE to
advance, will be seen to be only another name for Truth." This
has all the levity of a sophist's language! Hence we must
infer that some of the most important subjects could not be
understood and defended, but by Warburton's "_odd fortune_!"
It was this levity of ideas that raised a suspicion that he
was not always sincere. He writes, in a letter, of "living in
mere spite, t