condescended to improve from time to time that useful little book, The Oxford Guide, the last edition of which interleaved, and with some unpublished MS. notes is in the possession of the present writer.*

In all these works, Mr. WARTON displayed qualities which are rarely united, the taste and imagination of the poet with the industry and research of the antiquary. His fame, on both these accounts, will probably rest on his "History of Poetry," which has been justly said to exhibit the most singular combination of extraordinary talents and attainments; but in all his writings there are excellencies which mark the universal scholar, and the profound critic.

His disposition, with some appearance of indolence, was retired and studious, and he fortunately acquired such preferments as enabled him to pursue his natural bent, and rove unmolested among the treasures of learning which his alma mater contains in such profusion. In 1751, he succeeded to a fellowship of his college (Trinity), which administered ease and independence. In 1771, his income was augmented by the living of Kiddington, in Oxfordshire, presented to him by the Earl of LICHFIELD. His time was now devoted to his various literary pursuits, which, however, he occasionally relieved by associating with the most distinguished of his learned contemporaries, among whom his conversation was easy and gay, with a mixture of humour and anec

* A performance of considerable humour, entitled, The Guide to the Companion and the Companion to the Guide, is generally attributed to our author.

dote, of entertainment and information which will be long remembered at Oxford. He had less polish in his manner than his brother Dr. JOSEPH, but the conversation of the two together was a rich banquet.

In 1785, he was appointed Poet Laureat in the room of Mr. WHITEHEAD, and gave new dignity to this office by the original turn and manly taste of his Odes, which were soon distinguished as elegant compositions, and defied the ridicule which had been so plentifully bestowed on his predecessors, CIBBER and WHITEHEAD. About the same time, he was yet more honoured by being appointed successor to Dr. (now Sir WILLIAM) SCOTT, as Camden Professor of Ancient History. Sol occubuit, nox nulla secuta est.

Until he reached his sixty-second year he continued to enjoy vigorous and uninterrupted health. On being seized with the gout, he went to Bath, and flattered himself on his return to college, that he was in a fair way of recovery; but the change that had taken place in his constitution was visible to his friends. On Thursday, May 20, 1790, he passed the evening in the common room of his college, and was for some time more chearful than usual. Between ten and eleven o'clock he was struck with the palsy, and continued insensible to his death, which happened the next day at two o'clock. On the 27th his remains were interred in Trinity College chapel, with all the respect due to one who had merited so well of the University, by showing how honourably and profitably to literature and to mankind, a college life may be spent.

At the time Mr. WARTON wrote his three papers in the Idler, he lived in habits of intimacy and correspondence with Dr. JOHNSON: he was also a member of the Literary Club, and made occasional journies to London, to attend that, and to enjoy the pleasure of Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS' Company, of whom some notice is now to be taken as a writer in this work. It is a proud circumstance to be able to enrol so great a name among the ESSAYISTS.

What may be termed the incidents of Sir JOSHUA's life are but few. Like that of a scholar, it was a life of labour and study, and less interrupted by common events, or unexpected vicissitudes, than that of most men. For a long period of forty years, it was a glorious career of wellearned and well-rewarded fame, of fame which few can ever hope to attain, and from which none can wish to detract.

He was born at Plympton, in Devonshire, July 16, 1723.* His ancestors on both sides were clergymen; a descent, which, although it excludes the recollection of birth and rank, may yet be connected with the honourable claims of hereditary wisdom and virtue. His father had no adequate provision for the maintainance of his large family, but appears to have liberally encouraged his son's early attempts in that art, of which he afterwards became so illustrious a professor. When but eight years of age, Joshua had made himself master of a treatise, entitled

*It is perhaps unnecessary to say, that I am indebted for much of this account to Mr. MALONE's valuable sketch of Sir JOSHUA's Life, prefixed to his works.

"The Jesuits Perspective," and increased his love of the art still more, by studying Richardson's "Treatise on Painting." In his seventeenth

year, he was placed as a pupil under his countryman, Mr. Hudson, whom, in consequence of some disagreement, he left in 1743, and removed to Devonshire for three years, during which, after some waste of time, which he ever lamented, he sat down seriously to the study and practice of his art. The first of his performances, which brought him into notice, was the portrait of Captain HAMILTON, father of the present Marquis of ABERCORN, painted in 1746. About this time he appears to have returned to London.

In 1746, by the friendship of Captain, afterwards Lord KEPPEL, he had an opportunity to visit the shores of the Mediterranean, and to pass some time at Rome. The sketch he wrote of his feelings when he first contemplated the works of RAFFAELE in the Vatican, so honourable to his modesty and candour, has been presented to the public by Mr. MALONE, and is a present on which every artist must set a high

value.

He returned to London in 1752, and soon rose to the head of his profession; an honour which did not depend so much on those he eclipsed, as on his retaining that situation for the whole of a long life, by powers unrivalled in his own or any other country. Soon after his return from Italy, his acquaintance with Dr. JOHNSON Commenced. Mr. BoswELL has furnished us with abundant proofs of their mutual esteem and congenial spirit, and Mr. MALONE has added the

more deliberate opinion of Sir JOSHUA respecting Dr. JOHNSON, which may be introduced here without impropriety. It reflects indeed as much honour on the writer as on the subject, and was to have formed part of a discourse to the Academy, which, from the specimen Mr. MALONE has given, it is much to be regretted, he did not live to finish.

Speaking of his own discourses, our great artist says, "Whatever merit they have, must be imputed, in a great measure, to the education which I may be said to have had under Dr. JOHNSON. I do not mean to say, though it certainly would be to the credit of these discourses, if I could say it with truth, that he contributed even a single sentiment to them: but he qualified my mind to think justly. No man had, like him, the faculty of teaching inferior minds the art of thinking. Perhaps other men might have equal knowledge, but few were so communicative. His great pleasure was to talk to those who looked up to him. It was here he exhibited his wonderful powers. In mixed company, and frequently in company that ought to have looked up to him, many, thinking they had a character for learning to support, considered it as beneath them to enlist in the train of his auditors: and to such persons be certainly did not appear to advantage, being often impetuous and overbearing. The desire of shining in conversation was in him indeed a predominant passion; and if it must be attributed to vanity, let it at the same time be recollected, that it produced that loquaciousness from which his more intimate