Warburton, William, Dd

Warburton, William, D.D.

an eminent English prelate, was born at Newark-upon-Trent, Dec. 24, 1698. His father was attorney and town-clerk at Newark, and young William was designed for the law. He received the usual grammar-school education at Oakham and his own native village, and in 1715 was placed in the office of an attorney at East Markham, in Nottinghamshire, where he remained until April, 1719. He then commenced the practice of law; but his literary tastes prevented his success in that profession, and he abandoned it for the ministry. He was ordained deacon by Dawes, archbishop of York, in 1723; ordained priest by Gibson, bishop of London, in 1726, and appointed vicar of Gryesley, Nottinghamshire; became rector of Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire, in 1728; preacher to the society of. Lincoln's Inn in 1746; prebendary of Gloucester in 1753; king's chaplain in ordinary in 1754; prebendary of Durham in 1755; dean of Bristol in 1757; bishop of Gloucester in 1760; and died there June 7, 1779. In 173940 he published a series of letters, in The Works of the Learned, in defense of the orthodoxy of Pope's Essay on Man, which gained him the life-long friendship of the poet; and on the death of Pope, in 1844, it was found that he had bequeathed to Warburton half of his library, and the profits arising from the publication of all his works not otherwise disposed of. But the most important service rendered him by Pope was his introduction to the house of Ralph Allen, Esq., of Prior Park, near Bath. This led to his marriage, in 1745, with Alien's niece, Miss Gertrude Tucker, in whose right, on the death of Allen, in 1764, he became proprietor of Prior Park. Among his other literary writings are, Miscellaneous Translations in Prose and Verse (1723): An Inquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles (1727): — Alliance between Church and State (1736): Divine Legation of Moses (1738-41); this is his greatest work: — an edition of Shakespeare (1747): — Julian (1750): — an edition of Pope's Works (1751): — and The Doctrine of Grace (1762). Warburton's Works were published by his friend bishop Hurd, in 7 vols. 4to, in 1788, and a subsequent edition with a Memoir in 1794. In 1809 appeared a volume of Letters, and in 1841 another volume, entitled Literary Remains of Bishop Warburton. See Watson, Life of Warburton (1863).