WARTONWARWICK. 



879 



were thrown over it in the midst of the fire of the 

 enemy. The Prussians were 24,000 strong; the 

 French corps, under Bertrand, who opposed them, 

 20,000. The French were defeated with much loss. 



WARTON, JOSEPH, son of the Rev. Thomas 

 Warton, professor of poetry at Oxford, was born in 

 1722, at Dunsfold in Surrey. At the age of four- 

 teen, he entered on the foundation of Winchester 

 school, and, in 1740, at Oriel college, Oxford. He 

 left the university after taking his first degree, and 

 became curate to his father, afterwards exercising 

 the same office at Chelsea. He was created M. A. 

 by diploma in 1757, and, in 1768, was admitted to 

 the degree of D.D. He published, in 1744, a small 

 volume of Odes, and, in 1748, was presented, by the 

 duke of Bolton, to the rectory of Winslade, Bucks. 

 Soon after, he married. In 1751, he accompanied 

 his patron, the duke of Bolton, to France, as his 

 chaplain, for the purpose of uniting him in the 

 bands of wedlock to his mistress, Miss Fenton, a 

 public singer, on the occurrence of the expected 

 death of the duchess. The chaplain, however, re- 

 turning to England before that event took place, 

 another clergyman solemnized the -nuptials. In 

 1753, Warton published a new translation of the 

 Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil, accompanied by 

 Pitt's version of the JEneiA, with dissertations and 

 notes, and became a contributor to doctor Hawkes- 

 worth s Adventurer. In 1754, he was presented 

 to the rectory of Tamworth, and, the following 

 year, was chosen second master of Winchester 

 school. His Essay on the Writings and Genius of 

 Pope first appeared anonymously, in 1756; and, 

 twenty-six years after, he added a second volume, 

 part of which had been printed at the same time 

 with the former. In 1766, be was advanced to the 

 station of head-master at Winchester, where he 

 presided with high reputation nearly thirty years, 

 when he resigned the mastership, and retired to the 

 rectory of Wickham, in Hampshire. In 1797, an 

 edition of the works of Pope, with notes, issued 

 from the press under his superintendence (in 9 vols., 

 8vo.) ; and he then undertook an edition of Dry- 

 den's works, of which he prepared only two volumes 

 at the time of his death, which took place at Wick- 

 ham, in 1800. Memoirs of his Life and Writings 

 were published (in 2 vols., 4to.) by his pupil, doc- 

 tor Wooll. 



WARTON, THOMAS, brother to the preceding, 

 was born at Basingstoke, in 1728, received his edu- 

 cation at Winchester school, and Trinity college, 

 Oxford, and, in his twenty-first year, distinguished 

 himself by his Triumph of Isis, a poetical vindica- 

 tion of his alma mater against the reflections in 

 Mason's Elegy of Isis. His progress of Discontent, 

 said to have been composed as a college exercise in 

 1746, added to his fame. In 1750, he took the 

 degree of M. A., and the next year, was chosen a 

 fellow of his college. His Observations on Spen- 

 ser's Fairy Queen, published in 1754, made him 

 advantageously known as a critic, and prepared the 

 way for his election, in 1757, to the professorship 

 of poetry at Oxford, which he filled for ten years 

 with great ability. He was instituted to the living 

 of Kiddington, in Oxfordshire, in 1771, and, several 

 years afterwards, published an account of his parish, 

 under the title of a Specimen of the History of 

 Oxfordshire (1783, 4to.). The first volume of his 

 History of English Poetry was published in 1774, 

 and the second and third, respectively, in 1778 and 

 1781. His plan was extensive, including the period 

 from the eleventh to the eighteenth century ; but the 



history goes no lower than the reign of Elizabeth, and 

 a few sheets only of a fourth volume were prepared 

 for the press, when he relinquished his undertaking. 

 What he has executed is, however, very well done, 

 exhibiting an extent of research and reading, and a 

 correctness of taste and critical judgment, which 

 render it a subject of regret, that he should have 

 been diverted from completing his design. A new- 

 edition of the Historyof Poetry, with a preliminary 

 essay, and the notes of Ritson, &c., was published 

 in 1824 (4 vols., 8vo.). In 1785, Warton became 

 Camden professor of history at Oxford, and suc- 

 ceeded Whitehead in the office of poet laureate. 

 His last publication was an edition of the smaller 

 poems of Milton, elucidated with curious notes. In 

 his sixty-second year, he was seized with a paroxysm 

 of the gout ; and though a journey to Bath removed 

 the complaint, yet it probably laid the foundation 

 for a paralytic attack, which occasioned his death 

 at Oxford, May 21, 1790. He was interred, with 

 academical honours, in the chapel of Trinity college. 

 Among his various literary labours, not already no- 

 ticed, were an edition of the Greek. Anthology 

 (1766) ; another of Theocritus (1770, 2 vols., 4to.); 

 the Life and Literary Remains of Doctor Ralph 

 Bathurst (1761, 8vo.) ; Life of Sir T. Pope (1780, 

 8vo.) and an Inquiry into the Authenticity of the 

 Poems attributed to Rowley (1782, 8vo.). He 

 published a collection of his poetical productions in 

 1777 (8vo.) ; and his Poetical Works, with an Ac- 

 count of his Life, by Richard Mant, appeared in 2 

 vols., 8vo. (Oxford, 1802). 



WARWICK; a town of England in Warwick- 

 shire, situated on the north side of the Avon, ninety 

 miles distant from London. Rous, the historian 

 of the county, considers Warwick to have been a 

 place of considerable size and importance even in 

 the time of the Britons. Under the Saxon hept- 

 archy this town was with the county included in 

 the kingdom of Mercia, and came into the posses- 

 sion of Warremund, who called it after his own 

 name Warre-wyhe ; this derivation has, however, 

 been disputed, principally on the information af- 

 forded by a coin of Hardicanute, on which it is 

 called Werhica. Warwick suffered much from the 

 invasion of the Danes, and it appears most likely 

 that it was immediately after this rebuilt by Ethel- 

 fleda in 913, who also built the most ancient part 

 of the castle. Immediately after the Norman con- 

 quest, the importance of this place as a military 

 station seems to have been duly appreciated, for we 

 find it surrounded with walls, a portion of which 

 still remains, and is known under the name of the 

 Wall-dyke. In 1312, Warwick castle was repaired 

 by the celebrated Guy, earl of Warwick, who be- 

 headed here Piers Gaveston, the favourite of the 

 king, and the object of especial enmity to the great 

 barons who were in opposition to the crown. War- 

 wick was visited in 1572 by queen Elizabeth on her 

 route to Kenilworth castle; the town was also 

 visited by James I., in 1617, when a splendid en- 

 tertainment was given him in the great hall of the 

 earl of Leicester's hospital, in commemoration of 

 which an inscription was put upon one of the walls 

 of the building. During the parliamentary war, 

 the castle was defended against the king by Robert 

 Greville, Lord Brooke. Lord Brooke having had 

 occasion to repair to London for supply of arms and 

 ammunition, the castle was besieged for about four- 

 teen days by the earl of Northampton, but the gar- 

 rison made a gallant defence till Lord Brooke re- 

 turned to raise the siege. A large portion of the 



