votion to poetry in harmony with family traditions. At the age of nine he translated an epigram of Martial, and thus began to lay the foundation for his subsequent profound and farreaching scholarship. At sixteen he entered Trinity College, Oxford; and in the following year he wrote "The Pleasures of Melancholy." He took his degree with honour, and was elected a fellow in 1751. Subsequently became professor of poetry, and then of ancient history. Like his brother, Warton entered the Church and held different livings, but his clerical duties were merely nominal. He lived most of his life at Oxford, and he never married. Old Oxford honoured him all through his busy, useful career; and when the end came, he was buried in Trinity College Chapel with every mark of respect and all "academical pomp.'

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The quiet days at Oxford were spent in editing various editions of the classics, and in compiling anthologies; in writing some sonnets which rank as among the best in our literature; and in publishing poems,-some of them humorous and satirical,

and these were a relief from the statelier efforts of his genius. The critical sagacity of the man showed itself in his Observations on the Poetry of Spenser;" and he did great service to Milton's fame by his able and sympathetic editing of the minor poems. But Warton spent most of his time in investigating our early literature; and it resulted in his great work, "The History of English Poetry." Of the value of this work no student can be forgetful. He was a pioneer in a new field, and as such his labours were prodigious, but he won an enviable success. His influence upon English literature has indeed been great, "greater than at the first glance we should imagine," say Austin and Ralph, “not from any peculiar force of mind stamping its impress on his own age and giving a direction to the thinking of posterity, but from his opportune appearance, and the accidental bent of his studies. Himself a traveller in unaccustomed regions of research, he pointed out the way to that wide field of romantic literature which had become almost a shadowy land to his contemporaries. And William Minto says with equal justice and enthusiasm that though specialists may here and there detect errors in Warton's work, it is always interesting, while its breadth and exactness of scholarship must always command wonder and respect. He became, as I said before, the veritable literary father of Sir Walter Scott, and it was through him, in fact, that the mediæval spirit which always lingered in Oxford first began to stir after its long inaction, and to claim an influence in the modern world.

Warton was not only a profound scholar and a poet, but he was an entertaining companion; "the life of the common room," is the Oxford tradition. He told stories well, with a charm of

wit most irresistible. Though never married, he was passionately fond of children; and this natural love found outlet in frequent visits to Winchester School, and with all the boys he was a great favourite. He often helped them with their tasks. Once discovering that on a poor fellow the composition of a poem on a difficult subject had been imposed, he wrote the poem for him. But it was so exceedingly well done that the innocent fraud was of course detected immediately. Joseph Warton, however, with a mischievous glance at his brother's imperturbable face, allowed the matter to pass with the remark that he should expect another poem of equal merit the following week.

Warton's portrait as painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds shows an earnest, grave face, with a sparkle to the eyes, the mouth inclined to curve into a smile. Handsome in youth, he grew stout as the years passed. He had some eccentricities, and was not wholly free from certain harmless superstitions; but he was at all times the jovial, free-hearted English gentleman. His literary eminence, joined to his brilliant wit and his charm in conversation, won him many friends among men of letters, and he was the recipient of many flattering honours from them.

Laureate only five years, he was engaged in writing an ode when a stroke of paralysis came swift and sure to end his busy, useful life. Three days after death had claimed him, this last ode was performed in the Royal Chapel amid the tears of all present.

SELECTIONS FROM WARTON.

ON HIS MAJESTY'S BIRTHDAY, JUNE 4, 1787.

THE noblest bards of Albion's choir
Have struck of old this festal lyre.
Ere science, struggling oft in vain,
Had dar'd to break her Gothic chain,

Victorious Edward gave the vernal bough

Of Britain's bay to bloom on Chaucer's brow:
Fir'd with the gift, he chang'd to sounds sublime,
His Norman minstrelsy's discordant chime;
In tones majestic hence he told

The banquet of Cambuscan bold;
And oft he sung (howe'er the rhyme
Has moulder'd to the touch of time)

His martial master's Knightly board,

And Arthur's ancient rites restor❜d:

The prince in sable steel that sternly frown'd,

And Gallia's captive king, and Cressy's wreath renown'd.

Won from the shepherd's simple meed,

The whisper's wild of Mulla's reed,

Sage Spenser wak'd his lofty lay

To grace Eliza's golden sway:

O'er the proud theme new lustre to diffuse,

He chose the gorgeous allegoric muse,

And call'd to life old Uther's elfin tale,

And rov'd through many a necromantic vale,
Portraying chiefs that knew to tame
The goblin's ire, the dragon's flame,
To pierce the dark enchanted hall,
Where virtue sate in lonely thrall.
From fabling Fancy's inmost store
A rich romantic robe he bore:

A veil with visionary trappings hung,

And o'er his virgin-queen the fairy texture flung.