MEMOIRS, &c. THOMAS WARTON was defcended from an ancient and honourable family of Beverley in Yorkshire different from the Duke of Wharton's, but the fame with that of Sir Michael Warton, Bart. of Warton-hall, Lancashire. Antony Warton, who appears to have been the first of the family that fettled in Hampshire, was a member of Magdalen College in Oxford, and Rector of Breamore in the New Foreft. He had three fons; of whom it is remarkable, that two were deaf and dumb. Of these one, who had been placed under the care of Mr. Lely, nephew to Sir Peter Lely, and promised to be a good painter, died young; the other lived to about 60. The third fon, Thomas, father of the subject of the present sketch, was born at Godalming, Surrey, in 1687; and became fellow of Magdalen College in Oxford, and afterwards Vicar of Basingstoke, Hants, and Cobham, Surrey. He appears to have been in politics a warm Tory; and is faid to be "the "reverend poetical Gentleman" fpoken of in the 15th and 16th numbers of Amhurft's Terræ Filius. It is to the credit of his, as it would be to that of any man's character, that he was an intimate friend of Mr. Digby, through whom he was acquainted with Pope; and to the public respect, in which he was held, the University bore teftimony by electing him to the office of Poetry-Profeffor, which he held from 1718 to 1728. He married Elifabeth, daughter of the Rev. Jofeph Richardfon, Rector of Dunsfold, Surrey; and had by her three children, Jofeph, the late head-mafter of Winchefter College; Thomas, the fubject of these memoirs; and a daughter, Jane, now living unmarried at Wickham, Hants. He died in 1745; and is buried under the rails of the altar in his church at Bafingftoke, where his fons placed an infcription to his memory. It does not appear that he published any thing himself; but in 1748 a volume of his poems, from which he feems to have been a man of fome poetical taste, was published by subscription by his eldest fon at the end of the volume are two pleafing elegies on his death, the one by his daughter, and the other by the editor. a He is alfo faid to have been the author of a well-known epigram, occafioned by a regiment of horse being fent to Oxford, by George the Second, at the This is afferted in the "Biographical Dictionary," edit. London, 1798. article " Warton." I have feen it elfewhere afcribed to Dr. Trapp. same time that he gave a collection of books to the University of Cambridge. His fon, Thomas, was born at Basingstoke in 1728, and is faid to have difcovered at a very early age a fondness for study, and a maturity of mental powers, unusual in a boy. As a proof of this, it has been mentioned, that in the exceffive cold winter of 1739-40, when he was but eleven years old, he would quit the family fire-fide, and retire to his chamber, and there apply himself affiduously to his books, not as a tafk, but an amusement. He had commenced his poetical career at a ftill earlier age; and I shall hope for the indulgence of my readers, if I here infert his first compofition, written in a letter to his fifter, when he was about nine years old, and by her kindly communicated to me. Dr. Jofeph Warton always preferved it as a literary curiofity. "Dear Sifter, "I thank you for your letter; and "in return, I fend you the firft production of little Mufe, which I wish was now old 66 my enough to make a fong for you to set to "mufic; but at prefent I fend you these four |