Note 178 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS;

Some grave dull men, who did not relish the jests, doubtless the booksellers, who, to buy the name of Warburton, had paid down 500l. for the edition, loudly complained that Edwards had injured both him and them, by stopping the sale! On this Edwards expresses his surprise, how “a little twelvepenny pamphlet could stop the progress of eight large octavo volumes;” and apologises, by applying a humorous story to Warburton, for “puffing himself off in the world for what he is not, and now being discovered.”—“I am just in the case of a friend of mine, who, going to visit an acquaintance, upon entering his room, met a person going out of it:—‘Prythee, Jack,’ says he, ‘what do you do with that fellow?’ ‘Why, ’tis Don Pedro di Mondongo, my Spanish master.’—‘Spanish master!’ replies my friend; ‘why, he’s an errant Teague; I know the fellow well enough: ’tis Rory Gehagan. He may possibly have been in Spain; but, depend on’t, he will sell you the Tipperary brogue for pure Castilian.’ Now honest Rory has just the same reason of complaint against this gentleman as Mr. Warburton has against me, and I suppose abused him as heartily for it; but nevertheless the gentleman did both parties justice.”

Some secret history is attached to this publication, so fatal to Warburton’s critical character in English literature. This satire, like too many which have sprung out of literary quarrels, arose from personal motives! When Edwards, in early life, after quitting college, entered the army, he was on a visit at Mr. Allen’s, at Bath, whose niece Warburton afterwards married. Literary subjects formed the usual conversation. Warburton, not suspecting the red coat of covering any Greek, showed his accustomed dogmatical superiority. Once, when the controversy was running high, Edwards taking down a Greek author, explained a passage in a manner quite contrary to Warburton. He did unluckily something more—he showed that Warburton’s mistake had arisen from having used a French translation!—and all this before Ralph Allen and his niece! The doughty critic was at once silenced, in sullen indignation and mortal hatred. To this circumstance is attributed Edwards’s “Canons of Criticism,” which were followed up by Warburton with incessant attacks; in every new edition of Pope, in the “Essay on Criticism,” and the Dunciad. Warburton asserts that Edwards is a very dull writer (witness the pleasantry that carries one through a volume of no small size), that he is a libeller (because he ruined the critical character of Warburton)—and “a libeller (says Warburton, with poignancy), is nothing but a Grub-street critic run to seed.”—He compares Edwards’s wit and learning to his ancestor Tom Thimble’s, in the Rehearsal (because Edwards read Greek authors in their original), and his air of good-nature and politeness, to Caliban’s in the Tempest (because he had so keenly written the “Canons of Criticism”).—I once saw a great literary curiosity: some proof-sheets of the Dunciad of Warburton’s edition. I observed that some of the bitterest notes were after-thoughts, written on those proof-sheets after he had prepared the book for the press—one of these additions was his note on Edwards. Thus Pope’s book afforded renewed opportunities for all the personal hostilities of this singular genius!