Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/342

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328
REVEREND THOMAS WARTON.

ale, his pipe, and his jest, with persons of mean condition; and would convulse the tap-room with the sportive sallies that had previously enlivened the common room. He was inordinately attached to sight-seeing, a taste shared by the late eloquent and accomplished Lord Stowell; and once descended to disguise himself as a carter, to witness some public exhibition at London. In heart he was a boy to the last, and a universal favourite at Winchester. "How many faults?" was his question to an indolent urchin asking him to do his exercise, and according to the answer so the work was done; while the chance of a flogging was as great for what Warton had written as for what the tyro might have performed himself. On one occasion, a boy's ambition or fear overcame his judgment, and the exercise was above his average efforts. The Doctor suspecting the cheat, ordered the delinquent into his study, and sent for his brother. When Warton arrived, the exercise was read before him, and he affected to think most highly of its merit. "Don't you think it worth half-a-crown, Mr. Warton?" said the Doctor. Warton thought the boy really deserved such a recompense. "Well then, you give him one," was the reply; and Warton paid the half-crown for his own verses; his brother inwardly chuckling at the joke.

He was once busily employed in the kitchen helping some of the boys to cook some abstracted viands. Suddenly the Doctor's tread was heard upon the stairs; every one decamped, and the irate dignitary searching for the culprits, drew from an obscure hiding-place—his own brother.

These simple traits will give a better idea of the character of the man than the most laboured analysis. In conclusion we select the following odes as illustrative of the Laureate's style.