n
with the fellest intentions, but found his piece, in
bursting, annihilated himself. The popgun of the _little_
Theophilus could never have been heard!

[Warburton never lost a chance of giving a strong opinion
against Mallet; and Dr. Johnson says, "When Mallet undertook
to write the 'Life of Marlborough,' Warburton remarked that he
might perhaps forget that Marlborough was a general, as he had
forgotten that Bacon was a philosopher."]

But Warburton's rage was only a part of his _secret
principle_; for can anything be more witty than his attack on
poor COOPER, the author of "The Life of Socrates?" Having
called his book "a late worthless and now forgotten thing,
called 'The Life of Socrates,'" he adds, "where the head of
the author has just made a shift to do the office of a _camera
obscura_, and represent things in an inverted order, himself
_above_, and Rollin, Voltaire, and every other author of
reputation, _below_." When Cooper complained of this, and of
some severer language, to Warburton, through a friend,
Warburton replied that Cooper had attacked him, and that he
had only taken his revenge "with a slight joke." Cooper was
weak and vain enough to print a pamphlet, to prove that this
was a serious accusation, and no joke; and if it was a joke,
he shows it was not a correct one. In fact, Cooper could never
comprehend how his head was like a _camera obscura_! Cooper
was of the Shaftesburian school--philosophers who pride
themselves on "the harmony" of their passions, but are too
often in discords at a slight disturbance. He equalled the
virulence of Warburton, but could not attain to the wit. "I
found," says Cooper, "previous to his pretended witticism
about the _camera obscura_, such miserable spawn of wretched
malice, as nothing but the inflamed brain of a rank monk could
conceive, or the oyster-selling maids near London Bridge could
utter." One would not suppose all this came from the school of
Plato, but rather from the tub of Diogenes. Something must be
allowed for poor Cooper, whose "Life of Socrates" had been so
positively asserted to be "a late worthless and forgotten
thing." It is curious enough to observe Cooper