toire des Ouvrages des Savans de la Grande Bretagne,' printed at the Hague, where the communication appeared in the months of July, August, and September 1736, occupying about forty pages. It was addressed to Bishop Hare, under the designation F.E.C., Francisco Episcopo Cicestrensi, to whom, as soon as it came forth, he sent a copy. Hare returned a courteous answer, but conveying admonitory hints, at which Warburton must have winced:

'Dear Sir, I have this day received the favour of yours of the 13th, with the kind present that attended it, for which I give you many thanks.

'You do me a great deal too much honour in inscribing your remarks on Paterculus to me in the manner you have done. As I have not the book by me, I am not so capable of judging of the truth of the emendations, but, upon a slight view, see they are, many of them, very ingenious, as all your things are, and seem to arise out of the context, which is the best evidence there can be of the truth of them. I wish your printers had done you more justice. There are a great many typographical faults, and I think some that must be imputed to the haste of the editor, who seems to have attended more to the matter than to his expression. Some of your emendations put me in mind of what I remember to have heard a very ill-natured, but a very able critic, observe of Tanaquil Faber-that he could see a fault very well, but did not always know how to mend. It will, I presume, by nobody be thought strange if that should be the case in some of your conjectures, when it is but an essay, or specimen, not an edition, you give to the world. But as that is what you have done, I think so ingenious a man, who knows how easy it is to be mistaken in these matters, should generally express himself with a seeming diffidence.

1736.]

LETTERS FROM BISHOP HARE.

61

"You will forgive this liberty in one who is, with great Dear Sir,

esteem,

"Your most faithful friend and humble servant,

'The Vache, near Gerrard's Cross, Bucks, 'Nov. 18, 1736.' .

FR. CICEST.*

Under these strictures, Warburton could not rest in silence, but addressed to the Bishop, in a letter which has not been preserved, something in justification of his critical attempts, mingled with many flattering compliments to his lordship. Hare replied with much good sense, but with less of cordiality than he had shown in his former epistle :

'Vache, Dec. 4, 1736. of the 26th, which I You are by much if I did not think

'Sir, I have the favour of yours scarce know how to thank you for. an overmatch for a plain man; and, you a very good-natured man, and of a disposition extremely obliging, I should suspect you thought me a very weak one, to think myself entitled in any degree to all the fine things you are pleased to say. In earnest, I must desire you would drop all ceremony in your correspondence with me. A man that can write so well should not employ his pen in things so unnecessary as compliments.

"You extend my hint about Tan. Faber much farther than I intended it; nothing was farther from my thoughts than to make the application general. I know you can and have made very fine emendations; but sometimes the ablest critic, who is sure he sees a fault, may, for want of proper help, not be able to mend it with any degree of certainty. He may restore the sense when he cannot restore the words; and, for that reason, all emendations, though by the same hand, are not to be put upon a level,

* Kilvert's Selections from Warburton's Papers, p. 95.

and consequently should not, in my opinion, be given with the same air of assurance. As I could not think all your emendations upon Paterculus equally true, I think the speaking of them in the same manner, instead of giving weight or credit to bad or doubtful ones, does really detract from good ones; because many a reader, who cannot make an emendation for himself, may yet be so far a tolerable judge as to find sufficient reason to dislike where he should dislike in one or two instances; and if he finds them proposed with a show of certainty, he will suspect the truth of others where he is not so able to judge; and, in truth, I have always found in fact, that nothing hurts critics, and the art of criticism, so much in the esteem of the generality of readers, next to the ill treatment of one another, as the airs of assurance they are so apt to assume to themselves. The ground of criticism is, indeed, in my opinion, nothing else but distinct attention, which every reader should endeavour to be master of. Where there is in nature this ground-work, every man will be a critic in proportion to the compass of his learning in general, and upon each author in proportion to the particular application with which he has made the book familiar to him. But I am talking to one who has joined to a naturally clear attention, and just application, a happy genius and a fine imagination, which I wish, for the good of learning, you may very long enjoy; and am, Sir, your very faithful friend and servant, 'FR. CICEST.'*

Whether Warburton made any reply to this letter is unknown; but the good feeling of the Bishop towards him still continued.

To Conyers Middleton, also, he sent a copy of the notes on Paterculus. Middleton replied as follows:

Kilvert's Selections from Warburton's Papers, p. 97.

1736.]

VELLEIUS PATERCULUS.

63

'I had before seen the force of your critical genius very successfully employed on Shakspeare, but did not know you had ever tried it on the Latin authors. I am pleased with several of your emendations, and transcribed them into the margin of my edition, though not equally with them all. It is a laudable and liberal amusement to try now and then in our reading the success of a conjecture; but, in the present state of the generality of the old writers, it can hardly be thought a study fit to employ a life upon; at least not worthy, I am sure, of your talents and industry, which, instead of trifling on words, seem calculated rather to correct the opinions and manners of the world.'

The truth doubtless was, that both Hare and Middleton saw very well that Warburton was not likely to do himself much credit by emendatory criticism. His alterations in the text of Paterculus are of a similar character with those which he made in the text of Shakspeare, and of which both Conyers and the Bishop, perhaps from civility, and unwillingness to be too severe, spoke with more favour than most other readers have thought they deserved. Two specimens of his corrections he sent, seven years before, in a letter to Dr. Stukeley.* In the fourth chapter of the first book, Paterculus says, Cumas in Italiâ condiderunt [Chalcidenses]. Pars horum civium magno post intervallo Neapolim condidit. Utriusque urbis semper eximia in Romanos fides. Sed aliis diligentior ritus patrii mansit custodia. Cumanos Osca mutavit vicinia. Now, I dare say,' said Warburton to Stukeley, the word aliis sticks at first sight pretty much with you, for you observe this is all the way a conjoint account of the two cities, but in this part of the sentence it is dropped, and very impertinently said others preserved their country rites more diligently; which, certainly, so fine a writer could

6

* Nichols's Lit. Illustr., vol. ii. p. 7.

not be guilty of. I read, therefore, Sed Neapolis diligentior ritus patrii mansit; which makes it a pertinent observation, and worthy the notice of an exact historian. And it is not difficult to conceive Neapolis being corrupted to aliis by a stupid copier.' It may, perhaps, be doubted whether he meant Neapolis for Neapolitanis, or for the genitive case of Neapolis. The first seems rather to have been his meaning; both are equally absurd. Ruhnken, more wisely than Warburton, thought of reading illis; but Jani and Krause, the editors of the best edition, who, by-the-bye, seem never to have heard of Warburton's attempts, for they make no mention of them in their Prolegomena, very properly consider aliis to be for alteris, an interchange easily supportable by example.

The other alteration is that of consors into consocer, which is needless.

The emendations sent to the 'Bibliothèque Britannique' are thus entitled: Gulielmi Warburton, A.M., in C. Velleii Paterculi Historias Emendationes. Ad amplissimum virum, Theologorum literatissimum, Criticorum scientissimum, F.E.C.;' and are prefaced with some Warburtonian remarks on the Philosophers, bearing very little relation to Paterculus :

'Communis humanitatis scientia, quæ unica sapienti convenit, ex historicis, quemadmodum communis tantùm dementiæ, philosophis discitur ab antiquis. Hic enim nihil nisi materiam in rerum naturâ, ille ne vel hilum hujus esse contendit. Hic materia portiones quasdam facultate cogitationis dotatas esse opinatur; ille etiam incorporales, mente carentes, excogitat actores. Unus propriâ de existentiâ dubitat; alter vel sensuum denunciationes omni erroris admistione liberatas, puras et integras semper manere, confidit. Hic insanus supra Deos sapientem suum collocat; ille impurus infra bestias felicem deturbat. Fatuus quidam fabas serere reformidat; impudens alius homines, quâcunque ingreditur viâ, serere