1736.]

NOTES ON PATERCULUS.

65

licitum esse clamat. Usque tamen, ut ingenuè fateamur, Historia ipsa cognatam sibi semper servat virilem dignitatem. Veruntamen si forte in hac pagellâ secans cotem novacula mentem hebetet, proximâ vis virtutis, dum imprimit se, et quasi signat gentis barbaræ ac ferocis in animis vel suam speciem, mirificè nos afficit voluptate. Si in hoc loco sanguinis infernus imber perfundat nos horrore, cœlesti priscæ eloquentiæ rore derepente recreamur. Hic, si bos obscoenè vociferet, illic Romæ Athenarumque Genii Oracula divino afflatu fundentes audiuntur. Fragmenta veterum historicorum quantivis igitur pretii sunt æstimanda. Sanè etiam inter hæc seculi felicioris ornamenta haud infimum locum tenet Caius Velleius Paterculus. Cujus historici vis ingenii, quæ quidem summa fuit, non fugit quenquam in literis antiquis mediocriter versatum. Ob hanc, quæ in describendis, certis signis, hominum naturis, elucet maximè, illorum Scriptorum, per quos Imperii res Romani in compendia sunt redactæ, meritò Principis nomine dignatus est.'

He then laments, that of all the manuscripts of Paterculus, one only remains; and, in proof of the faultiness of the printed text, quotes Bentley In Tractatu eximio contra neotericos quosdam pseudo-parrhesiastas:'The faults of the scribes are found so numerous, and the defects beyond all redress, that, notwithstanding the pains of the learnedest and acutest critics, for two whole centuries, the work is still, and like to continue, a mere heap of errors.' His first alteration is that of malo suo* to in aulâ suâ, and the second that of tum regem (or rex) Syria to iterum rediens è Syriâ, both daring enough; for if Warburton had gained scholarship enough in his early years to become fairly a critic on the classics, he would have outdone the most audacious in audacity. The next attempt is better: neque imitanda (or imitandam) into neque emendandam, which was approved by † I. 10. F

* I. 6.

I. 17.

the able Ruhnken. But the reason for the change is given in most unhappy Latin. Paterculus is speaking of the old and new comedy: Prisca comœdia adumbratio tantum erat, sive primum comici operis lineamentum, quod Nova perficere contendit atque absolvere. Quum igitur de quodam comœdiæ genere, ut prioris reformatione et emendatione, commemorare author instituisset, suum erat docere lectorem an Novæ Comicæ artifices ad summum adduxerant eam, an opus erat profectu ulteriori.' Suum, and the indicatives adduxerant and erat, are sad solecisms. The next attempt seems to show that he did not see the construction, for he alters et init alia, a manifest corruption, into et enitentes alias, sc. urbes, where the sense requires the nominative; the later editors read, item ut aliæ. The two following, quippe-huc into quæ pœnam-hunc, and sensibus celebrem † into sensibus celerem, are two of his best. But another, the change of pecunia expellebatur cupidine into pecunia pellicebatur cupidine, is very unfortunate; it might be thought a misprint, if he did not add, in explanation, Quem-regis artes ad pellicendum non valebant, pecuniæ cupido pellicebat;' for though pelliceo, as the grammarians tell us, was used for pellicio, it was assuredly found only in writers much older than Velleius Paterculus. The other attempts at emendation are but of little importance; but let us extract one more: Paterculus speaks of Cæsar, preparing to invade Britain, as alterum pæne imperio nostro ac suo quærens orbem; Warburton turns ac suo into accisum, which, he says, is very applicable to an island, for ad in composition has the same force as the Greek app; so that accisi (Britanni) means undique casi, or åμdıxoñoi.

6

Hurd says that Warburton was prompted to undertake a commentary on Paterculus by being charmed with the

II 1.

† II. 9.

+ II. 33.

1737.]

VISITS SIR THOMAS HANMER.

67

elegance of his style; but, to say the truth, Paterculus's style has little elegance, though it has some resemblance to Warburton's own style in a certain portion of dashing animation, with no lack of parentheses. The Bishop is more fortunate in another remark, that the high estimation in which emendatory criticism was held, at the time when Warburton began to look about him in the literary world, naturally tempted a young man of enterprise to make some effort for distinction in that department of scholarship. He was prepared to adopt the usual critical pretext of condemning whatever he wished to alter as having been corrupted by a stupid copier.'

In May, this year, he visited Sir Thomas Hanmer, at his seat at Mildenhall, in Suffolk, on an invitation in reference to Sir Thomas's projected edition of Shakspeare. The acquaintance between them had been sought, as Hanmer affirmed, by Warburton, but, as Warburton asserted after Hanmer's death, by Sir Thomas, who had made advances to him through Sherlock, then Bishop of Salisbury. Their intercourse, however, which was very friendly at first, soon became disturbed with the suspicions of rivalry, and ended in estrangement and a violent quarrel. Which of the two was the more to blame in the disruption, we may defer examining till a subsequent part of our narrative, when we shall have to speak of Warburton's edition of Shakspeare.

CHAPTER IV.

'THE DIVINE LEGATION.'-LOWTH.

WAR

'THE DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES PROJECTED ITS OBJECT· BURTON'S REASONING HIS PROPOSITION THAT THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE WAS NOT TAUGHT BY THE JEWS-OPINIONS OF GROTIUS, EPISCOPIUS, AND BISHOP BULL — WARBURTON'S NOTIONS OF THE BOOK OF JOB; SUPPOSES THAT IT WAS WRITTEN BY EZRA -HIS ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF THIS HYPOTHESIS — HIS INTERPRETATION OF THE TEXT, 'I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH-LOWTH'S OPPOSITION TO WARBURTON'S ASSERTION, THAT EZRA WAS THE AUTHOR OF THE BOOK OF JOB-STYLE OF EZRA-JOB PROBABLY AN IDUMEAN THE AUTHOR OF THE BOOK OF JOB PROBABLY A JEW.

HE Alliance between Church and State' was a con

THE Alliance betwee it was nothing to what Warburton

designed to accomplish, and had, indeed, already begun. At the end of The Alliance' he announced his intention to publish a work, to be entitled 'The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated, on the Principles of a Religious Theist, from the Omission of the Doctrine of a Future State in the Jewish Dispensation.'

It had been argued by those whom Warburton delighted to call Freethinkers, that the absence of the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments from the religious system of Moses was a decisive proof that he was an impostor, since it was incredible that any institution of religion coming from the Father of Lights, should fail to support the belief in an existence after death, such belief being absolutely necessary, as well to any scheme of efficient government, as to the maintenance of any influential religious system.

1738.]

ARGUMENT OF 'THE DIVINE LEGATION.'

69

What the Freethinkers asserted as an argument against the Divine original of the Jewish religion, and, consequently, against that of the Christian religion, which is founded on it, Warburton accepted as an evidence of the Divine original of the one as well as of the other, and undertook to show, first of all, that, since the Jewish religion and polity had no sanctions of a future state to support them, they must have been under the immediate protection of Heaven, or have been upheld by means of a special and extraordinary providence.

His demonstration of this position he promised to leave very little short of mathematical certainty, requiring only the following postulatum to be granted him, which he considered that all would allow to be reasonable:

That a skilful lawgiver, establishing a religion and civil policy, acts with certain views and for certain ends, and not capriciously, or without purpose or design.'

This being granted, his proof was to be erected on three very clear and simple propositions:

1. That to inculcate the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is necessary to the well-being of civil society:

2. That all mankind, especially the most wise and learned nations of antiquity, have concurred in believing and teaching that this doctrine was of such use to civil society:

6

3. That the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is not to be found in, nor did make part of, the Mosaic dispensation.'

'Propositions so clear and evident,' he says, 'that, one would think, we might directly proceed to our conclusion:

"That therefore the law of Moses is of Divine original.' The first two of these propositions might very well, it may be thought, have been condensed into one. But the conclusion that the law of Moses was of Divine origin, was