Note 190 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS;

Warburton, indeed, was always looking about for fresh recruits: a circumstance which appears in the curious Memoirs of the late Dr. Heathcote, written by himself. Heathcote, when young, published anonymously a pamphlet in the Middletonian controversy. By the desire of Warburton, the bookseller transmitted his compliments to the anonymous author. “I was greatly surprised,” says Heathcote, “but soon after perceived that Warburton’s state of authorship being a state of war, it was his custom to be particularly attentive to all young authors, in hopes of enlisting them into his service. Warburton was more than civil, when necessary, on these occasions, and would procure such adventurers some slight patronage.”—Nichols’s “Literary Anecdotes,” vol. v. p. 536.