It is introduced by an exquisite preface on the literary character of the Fathers, and on the condition of moral science before, and after, the appearance of Christianity.

This excellent book had the fate of the author's other writings, to be censured at home. In a letter from Prior Park to Dr Balguy, January 17, 1751-2,-" They tell me," says he, "there are some remarks published against my Julian. I don't know the nature of them, nor ever shall. That matter interests every clergyman, that is to say, every Christian, in England, as much as myself. Besides, I have long since bid adieu to controversy. I give my sentiments to the public, and there's an end. If any body will oppose them, he has my leave. If any body will defend them, he has my thanks. I propound them freely; I explain them as clearly and enforce them as strongly, as I can. I think I owe no more either to myself or truth. I am sure I owe no more to the public. Besides, I know a little (as you will see by the new edition of the first and second volumes of Divine Legation') how to correct myself; so have less need of this assistance from others: which you will better understand, when you see that I have not received the least assistance from the united endeavours of that numerous band of answerers, who have spared no freedoms in telling me of my faults."

Again, some months afterwards, writing to the same friend-Bedford Row, May 12, 1752, he observes,

"I think you judge rightly of the effects of Lord Bolingbroke's writings, as well as of their character. As to his 'Discourse on the Canon of Scripture,' I think it below all criticism, though it had mine. He mentions (and I believe, with good faith) that foolish rabbinical fable of Esdras' restoring the whole lost canon by inspiration; and argues from it. However, the redoubtable pen of Sykes, though now worn to the stump, is drawn upon him; or, at least, threatened to be drawn. He threatened, too, to draw it upon poor Julian; but he left the execution to another. And who do you think that other proves? Somebody or other, by far more curious than myself, would unearth this vermin: and he is found to be one Nichols, whom your university some time ago prosecuted for stealing their books, or rather should have prosecuted. Have I not reason to blame you for your ill-timed clemency? Had they hanged him, as justice called upon them to do, my book had been safe. It is true, he has not fulfilled the old proverb, but rather contributed to a new one, 'Save a rogue from the gallows, and -he will endeavour to save his fellow.' I had gibbeted up Julian, and he comes by night to cut him down."-The pleasantry of these reflections has drawn me into a citation of them. Otherwise, it was scarce worth while to tell the reader what some of our own prejudiced countrymen thought of Julian. For the

learned abroad were generally much taken with this work. Among others, the president Montesquieu, who, it seems, was then meditating a visit to his friends in England, writes thus to Mr Charles Yorke from Paris, June 6, 1753: "When you see Dr Warburton, pray let him know the satisfaction I propose to myself in making a further acquaintance with him, and in taking a nearer view of his great talents. His Julian charms me; although I have but indifferent English readers, and have myself forgotten a great deal of what I once knew of that language."

And speaking of this work some years afterwards, in a letter to me, Mr Warburton says, "My Julian has had a great effect in France, where freethinking holds its head as high as in England. This is a consolation to me, as my sole aim is to repress that infernal spirit." And again, —“It has procured me the good will of the best and greatest man* in France; while there is hardly a nobleman in England knows I have written such a book ."†

This admirable work, as I observed, took its rise from Dr Middleton's 'Inquiry concerning the miraculous Powers in the Christian Church.' That ingenious man died towards the end of this year; and although some difference had arisen between them in 1741, and seems to have kept them asunder for the rest of Dr Middleton's life, yet no change appears to have been made, by this misadventure, in Mr Warburton's opinion or even esteem of him; so constant was he in his friendships! as the reader will see in the following extract from a letter, which he wrote to me just before the Doctor's death: "Prior Park, July 11, 1750. -I hear Dr Middleton has been at London, I suppose to consult Dr Heberden about his health, and is returned in an extreme bad condition. I am much concerned for the poor man, and wish he may recover, with all my heart. Had he had, I will not say, piety, but greatness of mind enough, not to suffer the pretended injuries of some churchmen to prejudice him against religion, I should love him living, and honour his memory when dead. But, good God! that man, for the discourtesies done him by his miserable fellow-creatures, should be content to divest himself of the true viaticum, the comfort, the solace, the asylum from all the evils of human life, is perfectly astonishing! I believe no one,

Duc de Noailles-The intelligence was communicated to the author by his friend, M. de Silhouette, who admired his writings, and has translated some of them.

In planning his treatise on Julian, he had proposed as the title page sets forth, to 'inquire into the nature of that Evidence, which will demand the Assent of every reasonable Man to a miraculous Fact.' But this part of his plan he reserved for another discourse. The subject was, in fact, resumed, and has been sufficiently explained in the Discourse on the Resurrection.'

all things considered, has suffered more from the low and vile passions of the high and low amongst our brethren, than myself. Yet God forbid, it should ever suffer me to be cold in the gospel interests! which are indeed so much my own, that without it I should be disposed to consider humanity as the most forlorn part of the creation."

What this letter tenderly hints at, was the exact truth. Dr Middleton was an elegant scholar, and very fine writer: but, his vanity having engaged him early in religious controversy on a subject which he did not understand, he had given just offence to some considerable churchmen; and yet would not condescend to recover their good opinion by retracting what he had hastily and unwarily advanced. Hence the obstruction to his views of preferment; which by degrees soured his temper so much, that his best friends, as Mr Warburton found by experience, could not calm his resentments, or keep them from breaking out into some unhappy prejudices against religion itself. This misadventure was the effect of his passion, not judgment: for his knowledge of theology was but slight, and his talents not those which qualified him to excel in that science. The bent of his genius and studies lay another way, and had raised him to great eminence in polite literature; of which his Letter from Rome,' and his Life of Cicero,' are shining instances. His other works are of much less value, and will soon be forgotten. Nothing shows the extent of Mr Warburton's genius, and the command he had of it, more, than his being able to mix the lightest with the most serious studies, and to pass, as his friend speaks,

'From grave to gay, from lively to severe,'

with so much grace and facility: a striking instance of which power we have here, in finding Julian between our two poets. For in the very next year (1751) he appeared again, as a critic and commentator, in the noble edition he gave of Mr Pope's works. And, as here, there was no room for emendatory criticism, of all others the easiest to be misapplied or misconstrued, so the public found very little to censure on this occasion. Indeed the main object of the edition being to do justice to his friend, it was natural for him to exert his whole force upon it; and as none can divine so happily of a poet's meaning, as the well exercised critic, if he be at the same time of a congenial spirit with his author, it is no wonder that he made this, what I formerly said of it, and still think it to be, the best edition that was ever given of any classic.

But, admirable as Mr Warburton was in this elegant species of literature, we are now to take our leave of him under that character; his editions of Shakspeare and Pope being, as he himself expressed it to me, amusements, which his fondness for the works of one poet, and for

the person of another, had engaged him in. We are, henceforth, to see him only in his proper office of divine; which he resumed when Mr Pope's volumes were out of his hands, and ennobled by a set of sermons, preached by him at Lincoln's Inn, and entitled Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, in two volumes; the former published in 1752, and the other in 1754; to which he added a third in 1767, consisting chiefly of occasional discourses.

I bring his works of this sort together under one view, that I may consider them at once, and give the reader an idea of their true character. He had used himself very little to write sermons, till he came to Lincoln's Inn. His instructions to his parish had either been delivered without notes, or extracted from the plainest discourses of our best preachers. In his present situation, he found it necessary to compose his sermons, and with care; his audience consisting wholly of men of education, and those accustomed to reasoning and inquiry. Here was then a scene in which his learning and knowledge might be produced with good effect; and it was in this kind of discourse that his taste and studies had qualified him to excel. His sermons are accordingly, all of them, of this cast; not slight harangues on ordinary subjects, but close, weighty, methodical discourses, on the most momentous doctrines of natural and revealed religion; opening the grounds of them, and supporting them against objections; expressed in that style of nervous eloquence which was natural to him, and brightened occasionally, but without affectation, by the liveliest strokes of imagination. In short, they were written for the use of men of parts and learning, and will only be relished by such. They are masterly in their way; but fitter for the closet, than the church; I mean those mixed auditories that are usually to be expected in that place.

There had been a friendship of long standing between Mr Warburton and Mr Charles Yorke; cultivated with great affection and esteem on both sides; the fruit of which appeared in 1753, in the offer of a prebend in the church of Gloucester, by the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. In acknowledgment of this favour, Mr Warburton addressed the first volume of the 'Divine Legation' to his lordship, when he gave the next edition of that work. Some, who were curious in observing coincidences, and meant to do honour both to the patron and client, took notice that the stall, to which Mr Warburton was preferred, was the same in which the Lord Chancellor Nottingham, that great patron of all the learned churchmen in his time, had placed Dr Cudworth: such a similitude was there apprehended to be between the two magistrates; and, still more strikingly, between the two divines, authors of The Intellectual System,' and The Divine Legation!"

But what idea of dignity soever might be annexed to this prebend, he exchanged it, a year or two after, for one of more value in the church of Durham, which Bishop Trevor, who did himself honour by the disposal of his preferments, very obligingly gave him, at the request of Mr Murray, now attorney general, in 1755.

He had been made chaplain to the king, the year before; and that promotion, as well as the present, making it decent for him to take his doctor's degree, the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Herring, very wisely took to himself the honour, which the university of Oxford had unhappily declined, of conferring that distinction upon him.

But while his friends were vying with each other in their good offices and attempts to serve him, a matter far more interesting to him, than any preferment, engaged his attention during the course of these two years.

Lord Bolingbroke died in 1751, and his philosophical works were published in 1753. Every one knows the principles and presumption of that unhappy nobleman. He was of that sect, which, to avoid a more odious name, chooses to distinguish itself by that of Naturalism; and had boasted in private what feats he should be able to perform, in the attack he had long threatened on all our metaphysics and theology; in other words, on natural and revealed religion.

Some had the simplicity to believe him on his word; and others, it may be, wished him success. All serious men stood aghast at the loud vaunts of this Goliah of the infidel party; and, prepossessed with the ideas of consequence, which the fond applauses of his friends, and, what must ever be lamented, of his tuneful friend, had thrown about him, waited with anxiety for the event.

In the mean time, as that friend said divinely well, for surely, in this instance, he prophesied, as well as sang,

"Heaven with loud laughter the vain toil surveys,

And buries madmen in the heaps they raise."

Dr Warburton had very early penetrated the views of Lord Bolingbroke; and, observing some tincture of his principles, (but without the knowledge of the author, who could not be trusted with the secret), artfully instilled into the Essay on Man,' had incurred his immortal hatred by making the discovery, and, in consequence of it, by reasoning Mr Pope out of his hands. It was easy to foresee what would follow from this vigilant and able divine, when his lordship's godless volumes should come forth; and the dread of it seems to have kept them back, for the remainder of his life. The interval, however, was made good use of, in reasoning them with poignant invectives against the 'Alliance' and 'Di