(William), who has been justly styled vir magnus, acer, memorabilis, was descended from an ancient and considerable family in Cheshire. His grandfather distinguished himself in the civil wars of the last century; and being of the royal party, probably injured his fortune by his attachment to his king and the constitution of his country. He married a lady of the county of Nottingham, by whom he had three sons; the second of whom, George, being bred to the law, practised as an attorney at Newark in that county.

William, the subject of this memoir, and the second son of Mr. George Warburton, was born at Newark, December 24, 1698. He was first put to school there under a Mr. Twells, but had the chief part of his education at Okeham in Rutlandshire, where he continued till the beginning of the year 1714, when, his cousin being made head master of the school at Newark, he returned to his native place, and was for a very short time under the care of that learned and respectable relation. In the month of April of the same year, he was put out clerk to Mr. Kieke, an eminent attorney of Great Markham in Nottinghamshire; and continued with that gentleman till the spring of the year 1719. He then returned to his family at Newark; but whether he practised there or elsewhere as an attorney, is not known to his accomplished biographer, the bishop of Worcester.

He had always expressed a strong inclination to take orders; and the love of letters, which tended to retard, rather than forward, his prospects in the profession chosen for him by his friends, growing every day stronger in him, it was deemed expedient to give way to that inclination. In the studies necessary to fit him for the church, he was directed by his cousin the schoolmaster of Newark; to whom, long afterwards, when he stood himself in the very front of literature, he gratefully acknowledged his obligations. At length, on the 22d of December 1723, he was ordained deacon by archbishop Davis of York, and priest on the first of March 1727, by bishop Gibbon of London.

Though he never liked the profession of an attorney, he had certainly acquired a very considerable knowledge of the laws of England; for in a dispute which arose in 1726, about the judicial power of the court of chancery, he combated with success the opinions of no less a man than the lord chancellor Hardwicke, then attorney-general.

In 1728 he was presented by Sir Robert Sutton to the rectory of Brand-Broughton, in the diocese of Lincoln, where he spent the greater part of his life, and composed all the great works which will carry his name down to posterity. In the same year he was put upon the king's list of Masters of Arts, erected on his majesty's visit to the university of Cambridge. He had already published some juvenile performances, which displayed genius and reading, and attracted considerable notice; but it was not till the year 1736 that he may be said to have emerged from the obscurity of a private life into the notice of the world.

The first publication which rendered him afterwards famous now appeared, under the title of "The Alliance between Church and State; or, the Necessity and Equity of an Established Religion and a Test Law; demonstrated from the Essence and End of Civil Society, upon the fundamental Principles of the Law of Nature and Nations."

In this treatise, says Bishop Horlsey, the author "hath shown the general good policy of an establishment, and the necessity of a Test for its security, upon principles which republicans themselves cannot easily deny. His work is one of the finest specimens that are to be found perhaps in any language, of scientific reasoning applied to a political subject."

At the close of the Alliance was announced the scheme of the Divine Legation of Moses, in which he had then made a considerable progress. The first volume of this work was published in January 1737-8, under the title of "The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated on the Principles of a religious Deity, from the Ommission of the Doctrine of a future State of Rewards and Punishments in the Jewish Dispensation, in five books, by William Warburton, M.A. author of the Alliance between Church and State;" and met with a reception which neither the subject, nor the manner in which it was treated, seemed to authorise. It was, as the author afterwards observed, fallen upon so outrageous and brutal a manner as had been scarcely pardoned, had it been "The Divine Legation of Mahomet."—It produced several answers, and so much abuse from the authors of "The Weekly Miscellany," that in less than two months he was constrained to defend himself, in "A Vindication of the Author of the Divine Legation..." Mr Warburton's extraordinary merit had now attracted the notice of the heir apparent to the crown, in whose immediate service we find him in June 1738, when he published "Faith working by Charity to Christian Edification," a Sermon, preached at the last episcopal Visitation for Confirmation in the Diocese of Lincoln; with a Preface, showing the Reasons of its Publication; and a Postscript, occasioned by some Letters lately published in the Weekly Miscellany, by William Warburton, M.A. Chaplain to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales."

In March 1737, the world was in danger of being deprived of this extraordinary genius by an intermittent fever, which with some difficulty was relieved by a plentiful use of the bark.

The "Essay on Man" had been now published some years; and it is universally supposed, that the author had, in the composition of it, adopted the philosophy of the Lord Bolingbroke, whom, on this occasion, he had followed as his guide, without understanding the tendency of his principles. In 1738, M.de Croufaz wrote some remarks on it, accusing the author of Spinozism and Naturalism; which falling into Mr Warburton's hands, he published a defence of the first epistle, and soon after of the remaining three, in seven letters; of which six were printed in 1739, and the seventh in June 1740, under the title of "A Vindication of Mr Pope's Essay on Man, by the author of the Divine Legation." The opinion which Mr Pope conceived of these defences, as well as of their author, will be best seen in his letters. In consequence, a firm friendship was established between them, which continued with undiminished fervour until the death of Mr Pope; who, during the remainder of his life, paid a deference and respect to his friend's judgment and abilities, which will be considered by many as almost bordering on servility.

Towards the end of the year 1739, Mr Warburton published a new and improved edition of the first volume of the Divine Legation; and in May 1741, appeared the second part, which completed the argument, though not the entire plan of that work. "A work, says Bishop Hurd, in all views of the most transcendent merit, whether we consider the invention or the execution. A plain simple argument, yet perfectly new, proving the divinity of the Mosaic law, and laying a sure foundation for the support of Christianity, is there drawn out to a great length by a chain of reasoning so elegantly connected, that the reader is carried along it with ease and pleasure; while the matter presented to him is striking for its own importance, so embellished by a lively fancy, and illustrated from all quarters by exquisite learning and the most ingenious disquisition, that in the whole compass of modern or ancient theology, there is nothing equal or similar to this extraordinary performance."

This is the panegyric of a man reflecting with tenderness on the memory of his friend and benefactor; but it approaches much nearer to the truth than the censures of those cabalistic critics, who, fastening upon some weak part of the Divine Legation, or perhaps never having looked into it, have ridiculously contended that the author was far from being eminent as a scholar (a), and that his work is inimical to the cause of Christianity! Putting partiality aside, there is in the Divine Legation of Moses abundant evidence of the malignant folly of this charge, as no man can read and understand that work without being convinced that its author was a Christian; not only sincere but zealous; that he was what Johnson calls him*, "a man of vigorous faculties, of a mind fervid and vehement, supplied by unlimited and incessant inquiry, with a wonderful extent and variety of knowledge, which had neither depressed his imagination nor clouded his perspicuity; and that to every work, and this work in particular, he brought a memory full fraught with a fancy fertile of original combinations, exerting at once the powers of the scholar, the reasoner, and the wit." But we think it must be acknowledged, that his learning was too multifarious to be always exact, and his inquiries too eagerly pushed to be always cautious. We have no hesitation, however, to say, that to the divine this great work, with all its imperfections, is, in our opinion, one of the most valuable that is to be found in any language.

In the summer 1741, Mr Pope and Mr Warburton, in a country ramble, took Oxford in their way. The university was naturally pleased at the arrival of two such strangers, and seemed desirous of inrolling their names among their graduates. The degree of L.D. was intended for the divine, and that of L.L.D. for the poet; but intrigue and envy defeated this scheme; and the university lost the honour of decorating at the same time the two greatest geniuses of the age, by the fault of one or two of its members. Pope retired with some indignation to Twickenham, where he consoled himself and his friend with this sarcastic reflection—"We shall take our degree together in fame, whatever we do at the university."

The friendship of this eminent poet was of service to Mr Warburton in more respects than that of increasing his fame. He introduced and warmly recommended him to most of his friends, and among others to Mr Murray, afterwards earl of Mansfield, and Ralph Allen, Esq.; of Prior-park. In consequence of this introduction, we find Mr Warburton at Bath 1742; where he printed a sermon which had been preached at the Abbey-church on the 24th of October, for the benefit of Mr Allen's favourite charity, the General Hospital or Infirmary. In this year also he printed a Dissertation on the origin of books of chivalry, at the end of Jarvis's Preface to a translation of Don Quixote, which Mr Pope tells him, he had not got over two paragraphs of, before he cried out, Aut Eragamus, aut Diabolus.

In 1742, Mr Warburton published "A Critical and Philosophical Commentary on Mr Pope's Essay on Man. In which is contained a Vindication of the said Essay from the Misrepresentation of M.de Refnial, the French Translator, and of M.de Croufaz, Professor or Philosopher and Mathematician in the Academy of Laflanne, the Commentator." It was at this period, when Mr Warburton had the entire confidence of Mr Pope, that he advised him to complete the Dunciad, by changing the hero, and adding to it a fourth book. This was accordingly executed in 1742, and published early in 1743, with notes by our author; who, in consequence of it, received his share of the abuse which Mr Cibber liberally bestowed on both Mr Pope and his annotator. In the latter end of the same year he published complete editions of "The Essay on Man," and "The Essay on Criticism;" and from the specimen which he there exhibited of his abilities, it may be presumed Mr Pope

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(a) We have heard this affirmed by narrow-minded clergymen, who were destitute themselves of every spark of science, and had no other claim to literature than what arose from a slight acquaintance with Hebrew critics of a very peculiar cast; to whom, it must be owned, that no great respect was indeed ever paid by the author of the Divine Legation of Moses. Pope determined to commit the publication of these works which he should leave to Mr Warburton's care. At Mr Pope's desire, he, about this time, revised and corrected the "Essay on Homer," as it now stands in the last edition of that translation.

The publication of "The Dunciad" was the last service which our author rendered Mr Pope in his lifetime. After a lingering and tedious illness, the event of which had been long foreseen, this great poet died on the 3rd of May 1744; and by his will, dated the 12th of the preceding December, bequeathed to Mr Warburton one half of his library, and the property of all such of his works already printed as he had not otherwise disposed of or alienated, and all the profits which should arise from any edition to be printed after his death; but at the same time directed that they should be published without any future alterations.

"In 1744, Mr Warburton turned his attention to the several attacks which had been made on the "Divine Legation," and defended himself in a manner which, if it did not prove him to be possessed of much humility or diffidence, at least demonstrated, that he knew how to wield the weapons of controversy with the hand of a master. His first defence now appeared, under the title of "Remarks on several occasional Reflections, in Answer to the Reverend Dr Middleton, Dr Pococke, the Master of the Charter-House, Dr Richard Grey, and others; serving to explain and justify divers Passages in the Divine Legation, objected to by those learned Writers." To which is added, A General Review of the Argument of the Divine Legation, as far as it is yet advanced; wherein is considered the Relation the several Parts bear to each other and the whole. Together with an Appendix, in Answer to a late Pamphlet intitled, An Examination of Mr W—'s second Proposition." This was followed next year by "Remarks on several occasional Reflections, in Answer to the Reverend Doctors Stebbing and Sykes; serving to explain and justify the Two Dissertations in the Divine Legation, concerning the Command to Abraham to offer up his Son, and the Nature of the Jewish Theocracy, objected to by their learned Writers. Part II. and last." Both these answers are couched in those high terms of confident superiority, which marked almost every performance that fell from his pen during the remainder of his life.

On the 5th of September 1745, the friendship between him and Mr Allen was more closely cemented by his marriage with Miss Tucker, who survived him, and is now, if alive, Mrs Stafford Smith of Prior-park. At that important crisis our author preached and published three formidable sermons: 1. "A Faithful Portrait of Popery, by which it is seen to be the Reverse of Christianity, as it is the Destruction of Morality, Piety, and Civil Liberty. Preached at St James's, Westminster, October 1745." 2. "A Sermon occasioned by the present unnatural Rebellion, &c. Preached in Mr Allen's Chapel at Prior-park, near Bath, November 1745." 3. "The Nature or National Offences truly stated.—Preached on the General Fast-day, December 18. 1745-6." On account of the last of these sermons, he was again involved in a controversy with his former antagonist Dr Stebbing, which occasioned "An Apologetical Dedication to the Reverend Dr Henry Stebbing, in Answer to his Censure and Misrepresentations of the Sermon preached on the General Fast, &c."

Notwithstanding his great connections, his acknowledged abilities, and his established reputation, a reputation founded on the durable basis of learning, and upheld by the decent and attentive performance of every duty incident to his station; yet we do not find that he received any addition to the preferment given him in 1728 by Sir Robert Sutton (except the chaplainship to the prince of Wales), until April 1746, when he was unanimously called by the Society of Lincoln's Inn to be their preacher. In November he published "A Sermon preached on the Thanksgiving appointed to be observed the 9th of October, for the Suppression of the late unnatural Rebellion." In 1747 appeared his edition of Shakespeare, and his Preface to Clarissa; and in the same year he published, 1. "A Letter from an Author to a Member of Parliament concerning Literary Property." 2. "Preface to Mrs Cockburn's Remarks upon the Principles and Reasonings of Dr Rutherford's Essay on the Nature and Obligations of Virtue," &c. 3. "Preface to a Critical Inquiry into the Opinions and Practice of the ancient Philosophers, concerning the Nature of a Future State, and their Method of teaching by double Doctrine," (by Mr Towne) 1747, second edition. In 1748, a third edition of "The Alliance between Church and State, corrected and enlarged."

"In 1749, a very extraordinary attack was made on the moral character of Mr Pope, from a quarter where it could be the least expected. An insignificant pamphlet, under the name of A Patriot King, was that year published by Lord Bolingbroke, or by his direction, with a preface to it, reflecting highly on Mr Pope's honour. The provocation was simply this: The manuscript of that trivial declamation had been intrusted to the care of Mr Pope, with the charge (as it was pretended) that only a certain number of copies should be printed. Mr Pope, in his excessive admiration of his guide, philosopher, and friend, took that opportunity, for fear so invaluable a treasure of patriot eloquence should be lost to the public, to exceed his commission, and to run off more copies, which were found, after his death, in the printer's warehouse. This charge, however frivolous, was aggravated beyond measure; and, notwithstanding the proofs which Lord Bolingbroke had received of Pope's devotion to him, envenomed with the utmost malignity. Mr Warburton thought it became him to vindicate his deceased friend; and he did it so effectually, as not only to silence his accuser, but to cover him with confusion."

About this time the publication of Dr Middleton's Inquiry concerning the miraculous Powers of the Christian Church, gave rise to a controversy, which was managed with great warmth and asperity on both sides, and not much to the credit of either party. On this occasion Mr Warburton published an excellent performance, written with a degree of candour and temper, which, it is to be lamented, he did not always exercise. The title of it was "Julian; or a Discourse concerning the Earthquake and fiery Eruption which defeated that Emperor's attempt to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem, 1750." A second edition of this discourse, "with Additions," appeared in 1751, in which year he gave the public his edition of Mr Pope's Works, with Notes, in nine volumes 8vo; and in the same year printed "An Answer to a Letter to Dr Middleton, inserted in a Pamphlet intitled, The Argument of the Divine Legation fairly stated," &c.; and "An Account of the Prophecies of Arise Evans, the Welsh Prophet in the last Century," annexed to the first volume of Dr Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, which afterwards subjected him to much trouble.

In 1752, Mr Warburton published the first volume of a course of sermons, preached at Lincoln's Inn, intitled, "The Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, occasionally opened and explained;" and this was two years afterwards followed by a second. After the public had been some time promised, it may, from the alarm which was taken, be almost said threatened with, the appearance of Lord Bolingbroke's Works, they were about this time printed. printed. The known abilities and infidelity of this nobleman had created apprehensions in the minds of many people, of the pernicious effects of his doctrines; and nothing but the appearance of his whole force could have convinced his friends, how little there was to be dreaded from arguments against religion so weakly supported. Many answers were soon published, but none with more acuteness, fidelity, and sprightliness, than "A View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy, in two Letters to a Friend, 1754;" the third and fourth letters were published in 1755, with another edition of the two former; and in the same year a smaller edition of the whole; which, though it came into the world without a name, was universally ascribed to Mr Warburton, and afterwards publicly owned by him. To some copies of this is prefixed an excellent complimentary epistle from the President Montagu, dated May 26, 1754.

At this advanced period of his life, that preferment which his abilities might have claimed, and which had hitherto been withheld, seemed to be approaching towards him. In September 1754, he was appointed one of his Majesty's chaplains in ordinary, and in the next year was presented to a prebend in the cathedral of Durham, on the death of Dr Mangey. About this time the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by Dr Herring, then archbishop of Canterbury. A new impression of The Divine Legation being now called for, he printed a fourth edition of the first part of it, corrected and enlarged, divided into two volumes, with a dedication to the earl of Hardwicke. The same year appeared "A Sermon preached before His Grace Charles Duke of Marlborough, President, and the Governors of the Hospital for the Small-pox and for Inoculation, at the Parish-church of St Andrew, Holborn, April the 24th, 1755." And in 1756, "Natural and Civil Events the Instruments of God's Moral Government;" a Sermon, preached on the last public Fast-day, at Lincoln's Inn Chapel.

In 1757, Dr Warburton meeting with Mr Hume's tract, entitled, The Natural History of Religion, filled the margin of the book, as well as some interleaved slips of paper, with many severe and shrewd remarks on the infidelity and naturalism of the author. These he put into the hands of his friend Dr Hurd, who, making a few alterations of the style, added a short introduction and conclusion, and published them in a pamphlet, entitled, "Remarks on Mr David Hume's Natural History of Religion, by a Gentleman of Cambridge, in a Letter to the Reverend Dr Warburton."

This lively attack upon Mr Hume gave him so much offence, that he thought proper to vent his spleen on the supposed author, in the posthumous discourse which he called his Life; and thus to do greater honour to Dr Hurd than to any other of his numerous antagonists.

Towards the end of the year 1757, Dr Warburton was promoted to the deanery of Bristol; and in the beginning of the year 1760, he was, through Mr Allen's interest with Mr Pitt, afterwards earl of Chatham, advanced to the bishopric of Gloucester. That great minister is known to have declared, "that nothing of a private nature, since he had been in office, had given him so much pleasure as bringing our author on the bench." There was, however, another minister, who dreaded his promotion, and thought that he saw a second Atterbury in the new bishop of Gloucester; but Warburton, says bishop Hurd, had neither talents nor inclination for parliamentary intrigue or parliamentary eloquence: he had other instruments of fame in his hands, and was infinitely above the vanity of being caught

"With the fine notion of a busy man."

He was consecrated on the 20th of January 1760, and on the 30th of the same month preached before the house of lords. In the next year he printed "A Rational Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper." In 1762, he published "The Doctrine of Grace; or the Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit vindicated from the Insults of Infidelity and the Abuses of Fanaticism;" 2 vols 12mo; and in the succeeding year drew upon himself much illiberality abute from some writers of the popular party, on occasion of his complaint in the house of lords, on the 15th of November 1763, against Mr Wilkes, for putting his name to certain notes on the infamous "Essay on Woman."

In 1765 he published a new edition of the second part of the Divine Legation, in three volumes; and as it had now received his last hand, he presented it to his great friend Lord Mansfield, in a dedication which deserves to be read by every person who esteems the well-being of society as a concern of any importance. It was the appendix to this edition which produced the well-known controversy between him and Dr Lowth, which we have noticed elsewhere (see LOWTH), as doing no great honour, by the mode in which it was conducted, to either party. In the next year he gave a new and much improved edition of the Alliance between the Church and State. This was followed, in 1767, by a third volume of sermons, to which is added, his first Triennial Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of Gloucester; which may be safely pronounced one of the most valuable discourses of the kind that is to be found in our own or any other language. With this publication he closed his literary course; except that he made an effort towards publishing, and actually printed, the ninth and last book of the Divine Legation. This book, with one or two occasional sermons, and some valuable directions for the study of theology, have been given to the world in the splendid edition of his works in seven volumes 4to, by his friend and biographer the present bishop of Worcester. That prelate confesses, that the ninth book of the Divine Legation displays little of that vigour of mind and fertility of invention which appear to conspicuous in the former volumes; but he adds, perhaps truly, that under all the disadvantages with which it appears, it is the noblest effort which has hitherto been made to give a rationale of Christianity.

While the bishop of Gloucester was thus exerting his last strength in the cause of religion, he projected a method by which he hoped to render it effectual service after his death. He transferred L.500 to Lord Mansfield, Sir Eardley Wilmot, and Mr Charles Yorke, upon trust, to found a lecture, in the form of a course of sermons, to prove the truth of revealed religion in general, and of the Christian in particular, from the completion of the prophecies in the Old and New Testament, which relate to the Christian church, especially to the apocalyptic Papal Rome. To this foundation we owe the admirable Introductory Lectures of Hurd, and the well-adapted Continuation of Halifax and Bagot.

It is a melancholy reflection, that a life spent in the constant pursuit of knowledge, frequently terminates in the loss of those powers, the cultivation and improvement of which are attended with too strict and unabated a degree of ardour. This was in some degree the misfortune of Dr Warburton. Like Swift, and the great duke of Marlborough, he gradually sunk into a situation in which it was a fatigue to him to enter into general conversation. There were, however, a few old and valuable friends, in whose company, even to the last, his mental faculties were exerted in their wonted force; and at such times he would appear cheerful for several hours, and on the departure of his friends retreat as it were within himself. This melancholy habit habit was aggravated by the loss of his only son, a very promising young gentleman, who died of consumption but a short time before the Bishop, who himself resigned to fate in the 81st year of his age. A neat marble monument has been erected to him in the cathedral of Gloucester, with this inscription—

To the Memory of WILLIAM WARBURTON, D.D. For more than 9 Years Bishop of this See; A Prelate Of the most sublime Genius, and exquisite Learning. Both which talents He employed, through a long Life, In the Support Of what he firmly believed, The Christian Religion; And Of what he esteemed the best Establishment of it, The Church of England. He was born at Newark upon Trent, Dec. 24. 1698. Was consecrated Bishop of Gloucester, Jan. 20. 1765. Died at his Palace, in this City, June 7. 1779. And was buried near this Place.