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THOMAS WARTON.
The life of Thomas Warton, by Dr. Mant, now Bishop of Killaloe, prefixed to the edition of his poems published at Oxford, is drawn from sources so authentic, and detailed with so much exactness, that little remains to be added to the circumstances which it relates.
Thomas Warton was descended from a very respectable family in Yorkshire. His grandfather, Anthony Warton, was rector of a village in Hampshire; and his father was a fellow of Magdalen College, and Poetry Professor in the University of Oxford. His mother, daughter of Joseph Richardson, who was also a clergyman, gave birth to three children:—Joseph, of whom some account will hereafter be given, Thomas, and Jane. Thomas was born at Basingstoke, in 1728; and very early in life afforded promise of his future excellence. A letter, addressed to his sister from school when he was about nine years of age, containing an epigram on Leander, was preserved with affectionate regard by their brother, Dr. Warton. What school it was, that may claim the honour of contributing to the instruction of one who was afterwards so distinguished as a scholar, has not been recorded.
On the 16th of March, 1743, he was admitted a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford; and about two years after lost his father,—a volume of whose poems was, soon after his death, printed by subscription, by his eldest son Joseph, with two elegiac poems to his memory, one by the editor, the other by his daughter above-mentioned. The latter of these tributes is termed by Mr. Crowe, in a note to one of his eloquent Crewian Orations,—"Ode tenera, simplex, venusta,"—"tender, simple, and beautiful."
In 1745 he published his Pastoral Eclogues, which Mr. Chalmers has added to the collection of his poems; and in the same year he published, without his name, the Pleasures of Melancholy; having, perhaps, been influenced in the choice of a subject, thus sombre, by the loss of his parent. In this poem, his imitations of Milton are so frequent and palpable, as to discover the timid flight of a young writer not daring to quit the track of his guide. Yet by some (as appears from the letters between Mrs. Carter and Miss Talbot) it was ascribed to Akenside. In 1746 was produced his Progress of Discontent,—paraphrase on one of his own exercises, made at the desire of Dr. Huddesford, the head of his college.
His next effort attracted more general notice. In consequence of some disgrace which the University had incurred with Government, by its supposed attachment to the Stuart family, Mason had written his Isis, an Elegy; and in 1749, Warton was encouraged by Dr. Huddesford to publish an answer to it, with the title of the Triumph of Isis. It may naturally be supposed, that so spirited a defence of Oxford against the aspersions of her antagonist would be welcomed with ardour; and among other testimonies of approbation which it received, Dr. King, whose character is eulogized in the poem, coming into the bookseller's shop, and inquiring whether five guineas would be acceptable to the author, left for him an order for that sum. After an interval of twenty-eight years, his rival, Mason, was probably sincere in the opinion he gave,—that Warton had much excelled him both "in poetical imagery, and in the correct flow of his versification."
He now became a contributor to a monthly miscellany called The Student; in which, besides his Progress of Discontent, were inserted A Panegyric on Oxford Ale, a professed imitation of the Splendid Shilling; The Author confined to College; and A Version of the twenty-ninth chapter of Job.
His two degrees having been taken at about the usual intervals, in 1751 he succeeded to a fellowship of his college, where he found a peaceful and unenvied retreat for the remainder of his days, without betraying any ambition of those dignities,—which, to the indignation of Bishop Warburton, were not conferred upon him.
At this time appeared his Newmarket, a Satire; An Ode written for Music, performed in the University Theatre; and two copies of verses, one in Latin, the other in English, on the Death of Frederic, Prince of Wales.