( 767°) 
CHARACTERS. 
Memoirs of Thomas Warton, late 
Poet Laureat. Extracted from 
an Account of his Life and Writ. 
ings, by Richard Mant, M. A. 
HOMAS Warton was descend- 
_4& ed from an ancient and ho- 
_ nourable family, of Beverley, York- 
shire. His grandfather, Antony 
Warton, appears to have been the 
first of the family that settled in 
Hampshire; he was a member of 
Magdalen college, Oxford, and rec- 
tor of Breamore, in New Forest ; 
he had three sons, of whom two 
were deaf and dumb ; the third son, 
Thomas, father of the subject of the 
_ present sketch, was born at Godal- 
ming, Surry, in 1687; and became 
fellow of Magdalen college, Oxford, 
_and vicar of Cobham, in Surry, 
and professor of poetry, in Oxford. 
He married Elizabeth, daughter of 
the rev. Joseph Richardson, rector 
_ of Dunsfold, Surry ; and had by 
her three children, Joseph, the late 
master of Winchester college ; Tho- 
mas, the subject of these memoirs ; 
and a daughter, Jane, now living 
unmarried, at Wickham, Hants. 
A-*olume of his poems were pub- 
lished by his eldest son in 1748. 
His son Thomas was born at Ba- 
Singstoke, in 1728, and, at an early 
age, discovered unusual mental pow- 
ers, of which the following ‘transla- 
tion, performed before the age of 
eleven, is a specimen. 
“ When bold Leander sought his dis- 
tant fair, 
“« (Nor could. the sea a braver burthen 
ear 
« Thus to the swelling waves he spoke 
his woe, 
“ Drown me on my return, but spare 
me as I go.” 
In 1743, he was admitted a com- 
mouer of ‘l'rinity college, to which 
he continued warmly attached till 
his death. In 1747, he published 
‘¢ The Pleasures of Melancholy,” 
written in his 17th year. The age 
of the author is sufficiently discerni- 
ble in its Iuxuriance and want of 
compression ; but it is truly a Mil- 
tonic poem, abounding with bold 
metaphors, and highly-coloured pic« 
tures, and shews that, even thus 
early, he was partial to the taper’d 
choir, and scenes of awful solemnity 
and grandeur. 
In 1749 came out his ** Triumph 
of Isis,’ occasioned by the jacobite 
principles, which were suspected to 
prevail in the university of Oxford, a- 
bout the time of the Rebellion of 1745. 
Soon after its suppression, the irregue 
larity of some young men gave offence 
to the court, in consequence of which 
a stigma was aflixed to the yice chan- 
cellor, and some of the heads of 
houses, at the time Mason published 
his 
