trap where he was forced
at every step to leave part of his skin--that is, his system."
Warburton has often true wit. With what provoking contempt he
calls Sir Thomas Hanmer always "The Oxford Editor!" and in his
attack on Akenside, never fails to nickname him, in derision,
"The Poet!" I refer the reader to a postscript of his
"Dedication to the Freethinkers," for a curious specimen of
supercilious causticity in his description of Lord Kaimes as a
critic, and Akenside as "The Poet!" Of this pair he tells us,
in bitter derision, "they are both men of taste." Hurd
imitated his master successfully, by using some qualifying
epithet, or giving an adversary some odd nickname, or
discreetly dispensing a little mortifying praise. The
antagonists he encounters were men sometimes his superiors,
and these he calls "sizeable men." Some are styled "insect
blasphemers!" The learned Lardner is reduced to "the laborious
Dr. Lardner;" and "Hume's History" is treated with the
discreet praise of being "the most readable history we have."
He carefully hints to Leland that "he had never read his
works, nor looked into his translations; but what he has
_heard_ of his writings makes him think favourably of him."
Thus he teases the rhetorical professor by mentioning the
"elegant translation which, _they say_, you have made of
Demosthenes!" And he understands that he is "a scholar, who,
_they say_, employs himself in works of learning and taste."

Lowth seems to have discovered this secret art of Warburton;
for he says, "You have a set of names always at hand, a kind
of infamous list, or black calendar, where every offender is
sure to find a niche ready to receive him; nothing so easy as
the application, and slight provocation is sufficient."

[185] Sometimes Warburton left his battles to be fought by subaltern
genius; a circumstance to which Lowth, with keen pleasantry,
thus alludes:--"Indeed, my lord, I was afterwards much
surprised, when, having been with great civility dismissed
from your presence, I found _your footman at your door, armed
with his master's cane, and falling upon me without mercy_,
yourself looking on and approving, and having probably put the