Note 165 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS;

The Attic irony was translated into plain English, in “Remarks on Dr. Warburton’s Account of the Sentiments of the Early Jews,” 1757; and the following rules for all who dissented from Warburton are deduced:—“You must not write on the same subject that he does. You must not glance at his arguments, even without naming him or so much as referring to him. If you find his reasonings ever so faulty, you must not presume to furnish him with better of your own, even though you prove, and are desirous to support his conclusions. When you design him a compliment, you must express it in full form, and with all the circumstance of panegyrical approbation, without impertinently qualifying your civilities by assigning a reason why you think he deserves them, as this might possibly be taken for a hint that you know something of the matter he is writing about as well as himself. You must never call any of his discoveries by the name of conjectures, though you allow them their full proportion of elegance, learning, &c.; for you ought to know that this capital genius never proposed anything to the judgment of the public (though ever so new and uncommon) with diffidence in his life. Thus stands the decree prescribing our demeanour towards this sovereign in the Republic of Letters, as we find it promulged, and bearing date at the palace of Lincoln’s Inn, Nov. 25, 1755.”—From whence Hurd’s “Seventh Dissertation” was dated.