July 15. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



41 



LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 15. 1854. 



THE EDWARDS COKEESrONDENCB. 



When MSS. have passed, during a series of 

 years, through many hands, and have found at 

 last an abiding depository, like the British Mu- 

 seum, the Bodleian, or some other public library, 

 it might be well, for the information of literary 

 men, that the fact should be noticed in the pages 

 of " N. & Q." As a case in point, the correspond- 

 ence of Thomas Edwards, the critic and poetical 

 writer, may be mentioned. In Col. Way's sale in 

 1834 it was purchased by the late Mr. Thorpe for 

 27/., inserted in his Catalogue of MSS. for that 

 year (No. 242., marked 42Z.), purchased by Mr. 

 Barker, the editor of Stephens' Thesaurus, and 

 resold, with the rest of his library, in 1834 or 

 1836. The MSS. afterwards passed into the 

 hands of the late respected Mr. Rodd ; and I am 

 informed by my friend Dr. Bandinel, that in 1837 

 the six volumes were happily obtained by him for 

 the Bodleian library. 



This correspondence, as the late Mr. Evans 

 told me in 1841, comprises letters addressed to 

 Speaker Onslow, Geo. Onslow, Hon. Philip Yorke 

 (2nd Earl of Hardwicke), C. Yorke, Lord Roys- 

 ton, Richardson, Crusius, Dyer, Cambridge ; two 

 letters are addressed to Pope ; one to Capel, with 

 emendatory criticism; J.H. Browne, Dr. J. Hoad- 

 ley, Lovibond, Dr. Chauncey, R. Lloyd, Birch, 

 Archbp. Herring, Melmoth, and Edwards's great 

 friend Daniel Wray. Many of these letters, Mr. 

 Evans added, "well deserve to be printed. In 

 one of them there is a curious mention of the 

 publication' of Pope's translation of the Odyssey, 

 by which it would appear that Pope had con- 

 cealed the assistance he received in 'the version. 

 The letters fill six volumes, each of which has an 

 index." 



The librarian of the Bodleian suspects that some 

 of Edwards's best letters may not have been pre- 

 served in these volumes; but still he considers 

 that an interesting selection may be made, and it 

 is to be hoped that they may, at no distant period, 

 engage the attention of some competent editor, 

 and that the literary world may be benefited by 

 their publication. 



^ Wounded as Warburton must have been, and 

 bitter as was his scorn of what Parr calls the keen 

 raillery of Edwards, he must have been awakened 

 by the acuteness of his criticism to the painful 

 conviction that, by a strange perversity of under- 

 standing, or depravation of taste, he had, in his 

 notes on Shakspeare, too frequently mistaken that 

 ■which was obvious and perplexed what was clear. 

 "There was an affectation (says Whitaker) equally 

 discernible in the editor of Pope and Shakspeare, 



of understanding the poet better than he under- 

 stood himself." 



When Bishop Hurd speaks of " the felicity of 

 Warburton's genius in restoring numberless pas- 

 sages in Shakspeare to their integrity, and in 

 explaining others, which the author's sublime 

 conceptions or his licentious expression kept out 

 of sight," his admiration of his idol must have ob- 

 scured his taste and common sense. Mr. Hallam 

 says with truth, " Warburton, always striving to 

 display his own acuteness and scorn of others, de- 

 viates more than any other commentator from the 

 meaning of his author." Walpole, and, at a long 

 interval, Mr. D'Israeli, both state as their opinion 

 that Edwards's volume "annihilated the whimsical 

 labours of Warburton ; " and we are told by Wal- 

 pole that "Warburton's edition of Pope had waited 

 because he had cancelled above a hundred sheets 

 (in which he had inserted notes) since the pub- 

 lication of the Canons of Criticism" {Letters, i. 

 232.) Whether Walpole had authority for this 

 assertion we shall doubtless, learn from the gifted 

 editor of the forthcoming edition of Pope, when 

 he touches upon Warburton as a commentator on 

 that poet. 



Of Edwards's talents, and of this celebrated 

 publication, displaying alike great critical acumen 

 and the keenest satire, one opinion seems to have 

 prevailed. True it is that while Johnson admitted 

 Edwards to be a Wit, he gave but parsimonious 

 praise to his work, considering that he had ridi- 

 culed Warburton " with airy petulance." In the 

 literary intercourse between these giants — per- 

 sonal intercourse they had none, as Warburton and 

 Johnson met but once, and that accidentally, — 

 we must be strongly impressed with the superior 

 noblemindedness and generosity of heart exhi- 

 bited by Johnson. He never forgot an early 

 compliment that he had received at Warburton's 

 hands, — " He praised me. Sir, when praise was of 

 value to me." His tribute to Warburton, in his 

 preface to Shakspeare, is the more valuable, as the 

 eulogy is so judiciously qualified. The high enco- 

 mium, the highest he could pay him — that " one of 

 his notes on Hamlet almost set the critic on a level 

 with his author," — would have been appreciated by 

 any one but Warburton, whose " literary tyranny 

 could not be exceeded, and has never been 

 equalled since the days of the Scaligers,"* In 



* Churchill, Worhs, vol. i. p. 224. The poet Byrom 

 had addressed Familiar Letters to a Friend, on War- 

 burton's Sermon "The Office and Operations of the Hdy 

 Spirit," One great object of these epistles was to 

 show, in opposition to "the bellicose divine," that 

 the main use of preaching is to inculcate peace. 

 This truth is enforced in lines of great beauty, and 

 in the most appropriate, gentle language. What 

 is the comment of Warburton ? " Byrom is very 

 libellous upon me, but I forgive him heartily, for 



