Note 181 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS;

“An Epistle to the Rev. Mr. Warburton, occasioned by his Treatment of the Author of ‘The Pleasures of the Imagination,’” 1744. While Dyson repels Warburton’s accusations against “the Poet,” he retorts some against the critic himself. Warburton often perplexed a controversy by a subtile change of a word; or by breaking up a sentence; or by contriving some absurdity in the shape of an inference, to get rid of it in a mock triumph. These little weapons against the laws of war are insidiously practised in the war of words. Warburton never replied.