Born at Dunsfold, Surrey, was the son of the Rev. Thomas Warton (1688–1745), vicar of Basingstoke and Oxford professor of Poetry. In 1740 he passed from Winchester to Oriel, and, rector of Winslade from 1748, returned to Winchester as second master in 1755, and was its head 1766–93. His preferments were a prebend of St. Paul’s, the living of Thorley, a prebend of Winchester, and the rectories of Easton and Upham. His “Odes” (1746) marked a reaction from Pope. An edition of Virgil (1753), with translation of the “Eclogues” and “Georgics,” gained him a high reputation. He was, like his brother Thomas, a member of the Literary Club. In 1756 appeared vol. i. of his “Essay on Pope” (vol. ii. in 1782), with its distinction between the poetry of reason and the poetry of fancy. Later works were editions of Pope (1797) and Dryden. See the panegyrical “Memoir” by Wooll (1806).

  That ardent mind which had so eminently distinguished the exercise of his public duties, did not desert him in the hours of leisure and retirement; for inactivity was foreign to his nature. His parsonage, his farm, his garden, were cultivated and adorned with the eagerness and taste of undiminished youth. His lively sallies of playful wit, his rich stores of literary anecdote, and the polished and habitual ease with which he imperceptibly entered into the various ideas and pursuits of men, rendered him an acquaintance both profitable and amusing; whilst his unaffected piety and unbounded charity stamped him a pastor adored by his parishioners. Difficult indeed would it be to decide whether he shone in a degree less, in this social character, than in the closest of criticism or the chair of instruction.

  I knew Joseph Warton well. When Matthias attacked him in “The Pursuits of Literature” for reprinting some loose things in his edition of Pope, Joseph wrote a letter to me, in which he called Matthias “his pious critic,”—rather an odd expression to come from a clergyman.—He certainly ought not to have given that letter of Lord Cobham.

  He remained a schoolmaster for thirty-eight years. As a teacher Warton achieved little success. He was neither an exact scholar nor a disciplinarian. Thrice in his headmastership the boys openly mutinied against him, and inflicted on him ludicrous humiliations. The third insurrection took place in the summer of 1793, and, after ingloriously suppressing it, Warton prudently resigned his post. His easy good nature secured for him the warm affection of many of his pupils, among whom his favourites were William Lisle Bowles and Richard Mant. Although the educational fame of the school did not grow during his régime, his social and literary reputation gave his office increased dignity and importance. In 1778 George III visited the college, Warton’s private guests on the occasion included Sir Joshua Reynolds and Garrick.

Essay and Edition of Pope

  Is, I think, the most extraordinary work I ever read, and is indeed everything but what it promises. The writer seems to have copied, and impudently enough printed, his commonplace book of anecdotes and remarks upon various writers. Some parts are indeed critical, but his criticisms are not in my opinion always just, and there is but little anywhere to be found that can be called new.

  Though by nature one of the most candid and liberal of critics, continues, as a biographer, to indulge that prejudice which had early induced him, in his popular “Essay” on this illustrious poet, to endeavour to sink him a little in the scale of poetical renown: not, I believe, from any envious motive, but as an affectionate compliment to his friend Young, the patron to whom he inscribed his Essay.

  Dr. Joseph Warton was an exquisite scholar, of very general reading, a man of the purest taste, and of some genius; yet it is obvious that he had not clearly settled in his own mind the theoretic principles of poetry, otherwise he would not have wavered in so feeble a manner, in finally drawing up a summary of the poetical merits of Pope, in his elegant “Essay” on that poet.

  He was seventy-five when he published his edition of Pope, and to save himself trouble he apportioned out the old farrago in notes. Profuse in digressions, he is sparing of needful explanations. His turn was for the lighter portions of criticism and biography, and most of his apposite remarks are critical opinions. They are often just, but never profound, for he had neither fervid feelings nor a robust understanding, and his highest qualities are a fair poetical taste, and a tolerable acquaintance with ancient and modern authors.

  His delay in following up the first volume of his “Essay” with a second, and the long period of forty years which elapsed between his first volume and his edition, have led to its being asserted that he abstained, from fear of Warburton. This assertion is not supported by Dr. Johnson, who, when asked the reason of Warton’s delay in bringing out the second volume of his “Essay,” said, he supposed “it was because he could not persuade the world to be of his opinion about Pope.” But Warton may, very likely, have been afraid of Warburton. If he was, such fear would have been no imputation on his courage and honour. He may, nay, he must, have feared Warburton, not as cowed by his superiority, but as a just and reasonable-minded man fears the contact of the irrepressible slanderer. He feared dirt, not confutation. It was impossible to suppress Warburton, and Warton was too refined a scholar to fight him with his own weapons of scurrility and abuse. When a man is incurably wrong-headed, the only resource is to avoid him. If it seems unhandsome in Warton to have spoken his opinion of the Bishop after his death, having preserved silence for so many years, it should be remembered that what might have been presumptuous in him at thirty-five, when he was only beginning to be known, was no longer so at seventy-five, when he had a long and honourable career of a life devoted to learning behind him…. Strange to say, though Warton’s Pope was published in 1797, and though it has been superseded in the market, it has never yet been improved upon.

General

  Have you seen the works of two young authors, a Mr. Warton and a Mr. Collins, both writers of Odes? It is odd enough, but each is the half of a considerable man, and one the counterpart of the other. The first has but little invention, very poetical choice of expression, and a good ear. The second, a fine fancy, modelled upon the antique, a bad ear, great variety of words, and images with no choice at all. They both deserve to last some years but will not.

  To every classical reader, indeed, Warton’s Virgil will afford the richest fund of instruction and amusement; and as a professional man, I hesitate not to declare, that I scarcely know a work, to the upper classes of schools, so pregnant with the most valuable advantages: as it imparts information, without the encouragement of idleness; and crowns the exertions of necessary and laudable industry with the acquisition of a pure and unadulterated taste.

  The power which feels, and the power which originates poetry, are totally distinct. The former no writer seems to have possessed with more exquisite precision, than Dr. Warton; and I do not mean to deny that he possessed the latter in a considerable degree: I only say that his powers of execution do not seem to have been equal to his taste.

  On this small collection of Lyric verse the fame of Dr. Warton, as a poet, principally rests. Of the seventeen Odes, however, of which it is composed, there are but two entitled to an elevated rank for their lofty tones and high finish; the Odes “To Fancy” and “On reading Mr. West’s Pindar,” and of these the first is much the superior. It abounds, indeed, in a succession of strongly contrasted and high-wrought imagery, clothed in a versification of the sweetest cadence and most brilliant polish…. The studies and propensities of Warton peculiarly fitted him for a translator of this portion of Virgil. His knowledge of the language of his original was intimate and critical; he was well versed in the manners, customs, and mythology of the ancients; he had a strong relish of the tender and sympathetic; his taste was delicately pure and chastised, and his versification correctly harmonious. With these qualifications, he has produced a translation of the Georgics which, in taste, costume, and fidelity, in sweetness, tenderness, and simplicity, has far exceeded any previous attempt, and has only been rivalled by the version of Mr. Sotheby.

  As a critic, Dr. Warton is distinguished by his love of the fanciful and romantic. He examined our poetry at a period when it appeared to him that versified observations on familiar life and manners had usurped the honours which were exclusively due to the bold and inventive powers of imagination…. The school of the Wartons, considering them as poets, was rather too studiously prone to description. The doctor, like his brother, certainly so far realized his own ideas of inspiration, as to burden his verse with few observations on life which oppress the mind by their solidity. To his brother he is obviously inferior in the graphic and romantic style of composition, at which he aimed; but in which, it must nevertheless be owned, that in some parts of his “Ode to Fancy” he has been pleasingly successful.

  His reputation as a critic and a scholar has preserved his poetry from neglect. Of his Odes, that to Fancy, written when he was very young, is one that least disappoints us by a want of poetic feeling. Yet if we compare it with that by Collins, on the Poetical Character, we shall see of how much higher beauty the same subject was capable. In the “Ode to Evening,” he has again tried his strength with Collins. There are some images of rural life in it that have the appearance of being drawn from nature, and which therefore please…. In his “Dying Indian,” he has produced a few lines of extraordinary force and pathos. The rest of his poems, in blank verse, are for the most part of an indifferent structure.

  One of the ripest scholars and soundest critics England has produced.

  Joseph Warton was not one of those original men of genius who rouse our curiosity and leave their mark on their age. Johnson, with far less learning, and Gray, who left only a few hundred lines of fragmentary poetry, will count as more remarkable men than Warton. But if, from want of force of character, Warton does not hold a first place among his contemporaries, he will always claim the regard of students of our literature, both for what he was himself, and for the new direction which he impressed on poetical criticism in this country.

  What Warton laid down as principles in his prose essays, he tried to exemplify in his verse. He turned directly away from Classicism, and drew his inspiration from fresh out-door nature and from meditative melancholy. Perhaps he is the first consciously romantic poet in the eighteenth century.

  Warton deserves remembrance as a learned and sagacious critic. He was a literary, not a philological, scholar. His verse, although it indicates a true appreciation of natural scenery, is artificial and constrained in expression. He was well equipped for the rôle of literary historian, but his great designs in that field never passed far beyond the stage of preliminary meditation. It was as a leader of the revolution which overtook literary criticism in England in the eighteenth century that his chief work was done.