THOMAS WARTON. Born at Basingstoke, Hampshire, in 1728. Made laureate in 1785. Died in 1790. (Reign of George III.) NOT since Dryden's time had the laurel been bestowed so worthily as now. At last a man of genius and a true poet had been willing to accept the honour. Warton was undoubtedly the best poet of the prevailing school, though he had also shown traces of being in harmony with that reaction which was already manifesting itself, soon to be expressed in the work of Cowper and Burns, and later of Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth. Warton was, as it were, a bridge between the poets of Queen Anne's time and the poets who were to work out the great revolution in English poetry. Warton not only showed traces of that enthusiasm for nature which was soon to be expressed so gloriously, he not only viewed with sympathy the spiritual phases of the age as contrasted with its predominant critical and artificial temper, but he wrote in harmony with that romantic and historical impulse which gave birth to a sublime passion for the glories of the past. It has long been the opinion that Percy's "Reliques "and Warton's "History" turned "the course of our literature into a fresh channel." In Warton's case his passion for the past resulted in the production of poetry infinitely fresher, nobler, truer than any since the time of Milton, and by influence he was the “veritable literary father of Sir Walter Scott." In many respects Warton was imitative. Often we see in his work the influence of Gray as well as of older writers, but it was an unconscious imitation which has its charm. And it is far better to imitate noble models and show some power, than to produce the tame, conventional, correct verses of men who followed so closely the lead of Dryden and Pope. Warton's powers as a descriptive poet were notable, not so much where he treated natural scenery, but historic places. He showed a delight in Gothic architecture, in the grand ruins of his country, in all that was in harmony with his historical and critical tendencies. It is said that his poem on Oxford in which come the lines beginning: "Ye fretted pinnacles, ye fanes sublime," so affected Dr. Johnson that when he first heard it read, he ap plauded till his hands pained him. The poem for its eloquence and vigour has many admirers still. As a politician Warton was acceptable to the government. He was an ardent Conservative in all his opinions, and in religion somewhat of a bigot. The bestowal of the laurel pleased him greatly, and he alluded to it in one of his sonnets with a naïveté which is charming. Like Southey, Warton wished to magnify his office, and in his verse classed Chaucer and Spenser among the laureates of the past, but when driven to state plain facts, he, too, acknowledged that the true English Laureateship began with Ben Jonson. Of all the laureates, with the exception of Rowe, Warton suffered the least from satirical attacks. His unmistakable claim to greatness seemed to impress the small buzzing gnats that usually swarmed about the poets of the day. Warton's first official ode was composed in haste and was not at all equal to the poetry he had been writing for many years, and it excited more or less ridicule; but after that, his official work was done with such genuine power that even the famous Wolcot, who under the name of Peter Pindar, produced such biting, brilliant, and unmerciful satires, contented himself with a few harmless thrusts. Warton was too great a poet and too amiable a man to treat such attacks with anything but composure and dignity. To his official odes we can apply the words which he himself applied to Dryden : "He came to light the muse's clearer flame, To lofty numbers grace to lend, And strength with melody to blend; We notice in Warton's official work not only lyric grace and manly strength, but an absence of that servility, that insincerity of adulation, which had disgraced the work of Tate and Eusden. He expressly said that he spurned Dryden's panegyric strings, that servile fear that had disgraced his regal bays-that it was his wish, however, to catch Dryden's manlier chord. Every family influence seemed to stimulate Warton's natural bent towards poetry. His father, the vicar of Basingstoke in Hants, and professor of poetry at Oxford, had distinguished himself for his verses. His elder brother, Joseph, was famous as a poet, a translator, an editor, and a critic. But his duties as head master of Winchester prevented him from giving his time to these congenial pursuits, and from carrying out many of his poetical theories-theories opposed to the dominant school of Pope. Thomas early showed great powers of application and a de votion to poetry in harmony with family traditions. At the age of nine he translated an epigram of Martial, and thus began to lay the foundation for his subsequent profound and farreaching scholarship. At sixteen he entered Trinity College, Oxford; and in the following year he wrote "The Pleasures of Melancholy." He took his degree with honour, and was elected a fellow in 1751. Subsequently became professor of poetry, and then of ancient history. Like his brother, Warton entered the Church and held different livings, but his clerical duties were merely nominal. He lived most of his life at Oxford, and he never married. Old Oxford honoured him all through his busy, useful career; and when the end came, he was buried in Trinity College Chapel with every mark of respect and all "academical pomp. The quiet days at Oxford were spent in editing various editions of the classics, and in compiling anthologies; in writing some sonnets which rank as among the best in our literature; and in publishing poems,—some of them humorous and satirical, and these were a relief from the statelier efforts of his genius. The critical sagacity of the man showed itself in his "Observations on the Poetry of Spenser;" and he did great service to Milton's fame by his able and sympathetic editing of the minor poems. But Warton spent most of his time in investigating our early literature; and it resulted in his great work, The History of English Poetry." Of the value of this work no student can be forgetful. He was a pioneer in a new field, and as such his labours were prodigious, but he won an enviable success. His influence upon English literature has indeed been great, "greater than at the first glance we should imagine," say Austin and Ralph, "not from any peculiar force of mind stamping its impress on his own age and giving a direction to the thinking of posterity, but from his opportune appearance, and the accidental bent of his studies. Himself a traveller in unaccustomed regions of research, he pointed out the way to that wide field of romantic literature which had become almost a shadowy land to his contemporaries." And William Minto says with equal justice and enthusiasm that though specialists may here and there detect errors in Warton's work, it is always interesting, while its breadth and exactness of scholarship must always command wonder and respect. He became, as I said before, the veritable literary father of Sir Walter Scott, and it was through him, in fact, that the mediæval spirit which always lingered in Oxford first began to stir after its long inaction, and to claim an influence in the modern world. Warton was not only a profound scholar and a poet, but he was an entertaining companion; "the life of the common room," is the Oxford tradition. He told stories well, with a charm of |