[¹] Preface to critical enquiry, &c.
[²] Examination p. 2.
Had one of the antient writers of Greece said this of himself, how positive, might a modern critic have been, from the decisive words, a bare looker-on, that he had never wrote upon the same subject before? And that therefore, any book of that kind ascribed to him, must infallibly be false and spurious. And yet, to the confusion of criticism, this author, who unasked, and of his own free motion, declares, that he begins this work as a bare looker-on, has for more than ten years before he made this declaration, been sweating in the thickest dust, and heat of Doctor Warburton’s most ardent contention for novelties.[¹]
[¹] Critical enquiry, &c. published 1746.
I have the Doctor’s own words for this, both for the novelties, and this gentleman’s wonderful zeal, and skill shewn in the defence of them, so many years ago.
“Notwithstanding, says the Doctor, all that can be said, much clamour will ever attend novelties, though never so strongly proved.—But truth seldom thrives the worse, for unreasonable opposition; and it would seem (N. B.) not to be far from its establishment, when such writers, as the following, appear in its defence—He hath established what he undertook to defend, with such extent of learning, and force of good argument, that I dare become responsible for all he says; and am willing, that those of my opinions here debated, may stand, or fall, by the strength, or the invalidity of this defence.”[¹]
[¹] Preface to the critical enquiry, p. 10.
This compliment, so very hearty, as well as elegant, puts me in mind of another, which the learned Doctor made some time since, to the whole clergy of this nation; “a body of men, says he, the most learned, virtuous, and truly Christian, that ever adorned a church, or state.”[¹]
[¹] D. L. Vol. 2. Preface, p. 6.
These two compliments are of so very high a strain, that were it not for the gravity of the Doctor’s character, and the seriousness of the subject, the reader might have thought himself obliged to understand them both ironically. But if the Doctor meant no more by this, than to buy a peace with the clergy, it must however be said, that he gave more for the purchase of it, than a man of a scrupulous conscience would have given.