1739.] WARBURTON'S EXPLANATIONS. 173 poem as likely to produce evil effects. As the clamour increased, Pope became uneasy, and, as Richardson says, 'took terror about the clergy, and about Warburton himself, at the general alarm of its fatalism and deistical tendency.' The passages that appeared to have most of this tendency had been frequently talked over by Pope and the two Richardsons in conversation; but Pope, at the time of their publication, showed no disposition to alter them. When objections were raised, however, Pope was very glad to accept Warburton as a defender; but previously, says Jonathan Richardson, I know that he never dreamed of the scheme he afterwards adopted, that is, of the sense and tendency which Warburton's commentaries forced upon the Essay.' CHAPTER X. ROMAINE. HARE. WARBURTON'S DISAGREEMENT WITH ROMAINE ROMAINE'S SERMON LETTER FROM ROMAINE TO WARBURTON ROMAINE'S PRETENDED OB- เ - WARBURTON DEATH OF DURING this year Warburton was engaged in an un pleasant affair with Romaine. Romaine, then about twenty-five years of age, and just ordained, preached a sermon at Oxford against Warburton's assertions in The Divine Legation' as to the silence of the Old Testament regarding a future state, which sermon was soon after published for him by a bookseller named Bettenham. About the same time that the sermon was preached, he wrote a letter to Warburton on the subject, commencing in a very flattering style, and representing himself as a young student in divinity, sincerely desirous of instruction. The letter began thus: Reverend Sir, I happened lately to meet, in company, with some clergymen, when your last excellent book, "The Divine Legation of Moses,' was the subject of their discourse. As I had read it more than once, with a great deal of pleasure, and had ever admired your elegant style, great learning, and strength of argument, and had 1739.] LETTER FROM ROMAINE. 175 been used to hear the same praises from others, I was very much surprised to hear those, whom, I imagined from their character, to be men of good sense, and that ought to commend and encourage whatever tended to promote true religion, speak with great disrespect of your performance. I thought myself concerned to defend the truth; and, to my great satisfaction, I found, upon a short inquiry, that what they advanced affected nothing which you had already writ, but what you had promised. Here was large room for mirth; and one could not but laugh at the oddness of some men's tempers, who are so ridiculous as to censure what they have never seen, and to condemn what it is impossible they should yet judge of. When they saw how unjust their reflections were, that they might not (like true disputants) seem to give up the point, they attacked even the proposition which you have promised to demonstrate, and I must ingenuously confess that they put some queries to me, which I, being no great proficient in divinity, was unable to answer. This, and the opportunity of returning my grateful acknowledgments for what you have wrote, was the occasion of the trouble I now give you; and as you are the only person I have heard of who has thoroughly considered this subject; as your character is concerned in the affair, and as I would (if it was in my power) hinder the least fault from entering your finished performances, and could wish that envy itself might be dumb, I hope you will favourably interpret my sending you these (which are to me, but not to you) difficulties, and oblige me with an answer to them, if ever an idle half-hour should lie heavy on your hands.' He then enumerates, as from the conversation of the clergymen, various texts, which Warburton afterwards fully considered in his book, tending to show that a future state was made known to the Jews under the Mosaic dispensation. The letter was signed W. Romaine.' Warburton, on receipt of the letter, endeavoured to ascertain who W. Romaine' was, but, not succeeding, returned him a short, but civil, answer, in which he gave him to understand that it was a necessary part of the argument of "The Divine Legation" to show that the Jewish fathers, patriarchs, and prophets, had a knowledge of a future state, and an expectation of a redemption.' But soon afterwards, when the sermon fell into Warburton's hands, he was chagrined to find that the passages in the letter, which affected to state the clergymen's objections to his notions, were, in reality, transcribed from the sermon; and he was persuaded that Romaine's object in writing the letter was to avoid the imputation of being so ridiculous as to censure what he had never seen, and to condemn what it was impossible he should yet judge of;' for, by communicating these objections to Warburton, before the publication of the sermon, as having been heard in conversation, he could put them forward in the sermon, not as from himself, but as common objections to Warburton's notions, or even to his own. Warburton, in his indignation, sent Romaine's letter, with his own comments upon it, to the Works of the Learned.' He remarked on Romaine's disingenuousness in representing his letter, not as a transcript from what he was going to print, but as the offspring of common conversation, and concluded by saying, 'Mr. Warburton, in justice to his reverend brethren, thinks fit to declare that he does not believe one word of what the said Mr. Romaine writes of a conversation with them on the subject of his book. He is too well acquainted with their candour and learning to think they could ever afford an opportunity to this benevolent gentleman to laugh at the oddness of their tempers, &c., but takes it for granted that this worthy man had no other meaning than to conceal 1739.1 ROMAINE'S TERGIVERSATION. 177 his own kind intentions under a false accusation of his brethren.' Such animadversions Romaine could hardly be expected to take quietly; and he accordingly signified his displeasure in a letter to the editor of the 'General Evening Post;' a letter which the editor of the Works of the Learned,' who copied it into his journal, designated as hardly to be paralleled among the productions of any other clergyman: ' 'Sir,-As Mr. Warburton hath violated the rules of decency by publishing in your paper a private letter of mine without my leave, I think it necessary to say that the notes upon the letter cannot be allowed to be an answer to anything advanced either in the letter or the sermon, but were designed to take off people's attention from the points in dispute to a personal quarrel. I have no bad opinion either of Mr. Warburton's capacity or learning; but he might have made a better use of them than to think he deserved, or that I meant in earnest, those compliments in the letter, as he did, or at least says he did. Unless necessity forces me, I shall not answer him any more in that low way which he and his bookseller have chosen to dispute in. . He He supposes the conversation was false; if he pleases to answer the sermon, or to advance anything new upon the subject, he will find that it was not false, but that there are numbers of clergymen who understand the subject, and are ready to defend it against him. Query, Hath not Mr. Warburton recanted his whole scheme, where he says, "It was a necessary part of the argument of The Divine Legation' to prove that the fathers, patriarchs, and prophets of the Jewish line had a knowledge of a future state, and the redemption of mankind by the Messiah ?" 'W. ROMAINE.' This letter, says the editor of the Works of the N |