The Henson Journals

[671]

Tuesday, February 22nd, 1916.

568th day

"It was always my opinion that the very worst vogue in society is a Saint run mad." [v. Warburton, in Illustrations of Literature ii. 812]

Bp. Hurd thus describes Warburton's preaching:–

"He had used himself very little to write sermons, till he came to Lincoln's Inn. His instructions to his parish had either been delivered without notes, or extracted from the plainest discourses of our best preachers. In his present situation, he found it necessary to compose his sermons, & with care: his audience consisting wholly of education, & those accustomed to reasoning & inquiry." [v. Discourse by way of Preface to the Quarto ed: of Bp. Warburton's Works p. 70. London, 1794]

Criticising on the margins of books was evidently a favourite practice of Warburton's. He treated thus Hume's "Natural Hist: of Religion", published in 1757. "This book," says Hurd, "falling into the hands of Dr Warburton, provoked him, by its uncommon licentiousness, to enter on the margin, as he went along, such remarks as occurred to him. And when that was too narrow to contain them all, he put down the rest on loose scraps of paper, wh. he stuck bet: the leaves. In this state the book was shown to me (as I chanced at that time to be in London with the author) merely as matter of curiosity, & to give me an idea of the contents, how mischievous & extravagant they were. He had then written remarks on about 2/3rds of the volume." (Ibid. p. 79). Hurd dressed the notes up, & published them anonymously. In the same way he filled the margins of Clarendon's Hist: of the Rebellion (Ibid. p. 88) and Tindal's "Christianity as old as the Creation" (Ib: p. 89). These books are said by Hurd to be at Hartlebury, where presumably they are still preserved. I must inquire about them.

[673]

In 1762 Warburton published some sermons under the title "The Doctrine of Grace: or, The Office & Operations of the Holy Spirit vindicated from the insults of Infidelity, & the Abuses of Fanaticism". It was directed against the Methodists, & especially against 'their leader & architype [sic], John Wesley, out of the materials, largely furnished to him in that adventurer's own journals'. Hurd allows himself to venture on a prophecy, which reads strangely after the lapse of more than a century. "This discourse," he says, "like Pascal's Letters, & for the same reason, the singular merit of the composition, will be read, when the sect, that gave occasion to it, is forgotten: or rather the sect will find a sort of immortality in this discourse." [Ibid. p. 92]

In 1777 Robert Lowth was translated from Oxford to London. In the same year he met John Wesley at dinner, & refused to sit above him. Wesley spoke of Lowth in his 'Journal' as in his 'whole behaviour worthy of a Christian bishop'. [v. Dict: of Nat: Biography.] These two men, Warburton & Lowth, became canons of Durham in the same year, 1755. In the preceding year, 1754, Joseph Spence (1699–1768) had become a canon of the same cathedral. 'Spence left a collection of literary anecdotes which illustrates the benefit which a man of ordinary abilities may confer upon literature by a mere faithful record of what he has heard. Without his notes much of the literary history of the 18th century, & especially that of Pope, his immediate circle, and his antagonists, would have been irretrievably lost'. [v. Dict: of Nat: Biog.] Here is a notable trinity of canons – Warburton, the controversialist, Spence the amiable gardener & dilettantist, and Louth, the fine scholar & most erudite divine. Spencer Cowper was Dean.

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