or The Lover of Nature, and remember that it was printed in 1744, the year of Pope's death. “As he is convinced,” he wrote in the preface (1746) to his Odes an Several Subjects, “that the fashion of moralizing in verse has been carried too far, and as he looks upon invention and imagination to be the chief faculties of a poet, so he will be happy if the following odes may be looked upon as an attempt to bring back poetry into its right channel.” He published an edition (1753) in Latin and English of Virgil. This contained Christopher Pitt's version of the Aeneid, his own rendering of the Eclogues and Georgics in the heroic measure, and essays by Warburton and others. Warton himself appended essays on epic and didactic poetry, a life of Virgil and notes. He made the acquaintance of Dr Johnson, and wrote papers on Shakespeare and Homer in The Adventurer; and in 1757 he published the first part of an Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, an essay regarded at the time as revolutionary, by Johnson at least, because it put Pope in the second rank to Shakespeare, Spenser and Milton, on the ground that moral and ethical poetry, however excellent, is an inferior species. He held his own against Johnson in the Literary Club; and after enduring many jests about the promised second part of the essay and the delay in its appearance, published it at last, retracting nothing, in 1782. Warton's edition of Pope was published in 1797. An edition of Dryden, for which he had collected materials, was completed and published by his son in 1811. Warton was a prebendary of St Paul's and of Winchester Cathedrals, and held the livings of Upham and of Wickham, Hampshire, where he died on the 23rd of February 1800.
See Biographical Memoirs of the Late Rev. Joseph Warton, by John Wooll (vol. i., 1806, no more published).
WARTON, THOMAS (c. 1688-1745), English author, professor of poetry at Oxford, son of Anthony Warton, was born at Godalming about 1688. He was educated at Hart Hall and Magdalen College, Oxford. He was satirized for his incompetence as professor of poetry by Nicholas Amhurst in Terrae filius as “squinting Tom of Maudlin.” He was vicar of Basingstoke, Hampshire, and master of the grammar-school of the town, where he had among his pupils Gilbert White, the naturalist. He received further preferment's in the church, and died at Basingstoke on the 10th of September 1745. He published nothing during his lifetime, but after his death his son Joseph published some of his poetry under the title of Poems on Several Occasions (1748).
WARTON, THOMAS (1728-1790), English poet-laureate and historian of poetry, younger son of Thomas Warton (see above), was born at Basingstoke on the 9th of January 1728. He was still more precocious as a poet than his brother—translated one of Martial's epigrams at nine, and wrote The Pleasures of Melancholy at seventeen—and he showed exactly the same bent, Milton and Spenser being his favourite poets, though he “did not fail to cultivate his mind with the soft thrillings of the tragic muse” of Shakespeare.
In a poem written in 1745 he shows the delight in Gothic churches and ruined castles which inspired so much of his subsequent work in romantic revival. Most of Warton's poetry, humorous and serious—and the humorous mock heroic was better within his powers than serious verse—was written before the age of twenty-three, when he took his M.A. degree and became a fellow of his college (Trinity, Oxford). He did not altogether abandon verse; his sonnets, especially, which are the best of his poems, were written later. But his main energies were given to omnivorous poetical reading and criticism. He was the first to turn to literary account the medieval treasures of the Bodleian Library. It was through him, in fact, that the medieval spirit which always lingered in Oxford first began to stir after its long inaction, and to claim an influence in the modern world. Warton, like his brother, entered the church, and held one after another, various livings, but he did not marry. He gave little attention to his clerical duties, and Oxford always remained his home. In 1749 he published an heroic poem in praise of Oxford, The Triumph of Isis. He was a very easy and convivial as well as a very learned don, with a taste for pothouses and crowds as well as dim aisles and romances in manuscript and black letter. The first proof that he gave of his extraordinarily wide scholarship was in his Observations on the Poetry of Spenser (1754). Three years later he was appointed professor of poetry, and held the office for ten years, sending round, according to the story, at the beginning of term to inquire whether anybody wished him to lecture. The first volume of his monumental work, The History of English Poetry, appeared twenty years later, in 1774, the second volume in 1778, and the third in 1781. A work of such enormous labour and research could proceed but slowly, and it was no wonder that Warton flagged in the execution of it, and stopped to refresh himself with annotating (1785) the minor poems of Milton, pouring out in this delightful work the accumulated suggestions of forty years.
In 1785 he became Camden professor of history, and was made poet-laureate in the same year. Among his minor works were an edition of Theocritus, a selection of Latin and Greek inscriptions, the humorous Oxford Companion to the Guide and Guide to the Companion (1762); The Oxford Sausage (1764); an edition of Theocritus (1770); lives of Sir Thomas Pope and Ralph Bathurst, college benefactors; a History of the Anliquities of Kiddington Parish, of which he held the living (1781); and an Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782). His busy and convivial life was ended by a paralytic stroke in May 1790.
Warton's poems were first collected in 1777, and he was engaged at the time of his death on a corrected edition, which appeared in 1791, with a memoir by his friend and admirer, Richard Mant. They were edited in 1822 for the British poets, by S. W. Singer.
The History of English Poetry from the close of the 11th to the Commencement of the 18th Century, to which are prefixed two Dissertations: I. On the Origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe; II. On the Introduction of Learning into England (1774-1781) was only brought down to the close of the 16th century. It was criticized by J. Ritson in 1782 in A Familiar Letter to the Author. A new edition came out in 1824, with an elaborate introduction by the editor, Richard Price, who added to the text comments and emendations from Joseph Ritson, Francis Douce, George Ashby, Thomas Park and himself. Another edition of this, stated to be “further improved by the corrections and additions of several eminent antiquaries,” appeared in 1840. In 1871 the book was subjected to a radical revision by Mr W. C. Hazlitt. He cut out passages in which Warton had been led into gross errors by misreading his authorities or relying on false information, and supplied within brackets information on authors or works omitted. Warton's matter, which was somewhat scattered, although he worked on a chronological plan, was in some cases rearranged and the mass of profuse and often contradictory notes was cut down, although new information was added by the editor and his associates, Sir Frederick Madden, Thomas Wright, W. Aldis Wright, W. W. Skeat, Richard Morris and F. J. Furnivall. When all criticism has been allowed for the inaccuracies of Warton's work, and the unsatisfactory nature of his general plan, the fact remains that his book is still indispensable to the student of English poetry. Moreover, much that may seem commonplace in his criticism was entirely fresh and even revolutionary in his own day. Warton directed the attention of readers to early English literature, and, in view of the want of texts, rendered inestimable service by transcribing large extracts from early writers. Of the poets of the 16th century he was an extremely sympathetic critic and has not been superseded.
See “T. Warton and Machyn's Diary,” by H. E. D. Blakiston in the English Historical Review (April 1896) for illustrations of his inaccurate methods.
WARWICK, EARLS OF. John Rous (c. 1411-1491) the historian of the earls of Warwick, gives an account of them from Brutus their founder through many mythical ancestors, among whom is the Guy of romance. The 1st earl of Warwick was Henry de Newburgh (d. 1123), lord of Newbourg in Normandy and son of Roger de Beaumont. He became constable of Warwick Castle in 1068, and, though there is no proof that he actually came over with the Conqueror, his elder brother Robert de Beaumont, comte de Meulan, fought at Hastings. He apparently spent most of his time in Normandy, and was a baron of the Norman exchequer. He was created earl of Warwick early in the reign of William II. receiving a grant of the great estates of the Saxon, Thurkill of Arden, in Warwickshire. He was attached throughout his life to Henry I., and both the Beaumont brothers were faithful to the king at the time of the
