was apt
to commit himself by hasty and undigested observations. As he did not
aim at being very oracular himself, so he was unusually tolerant of
ignorance in others. Of this, a diverting instance is recorded by Dr.
Wooll: meeting in company with a lady who was a kinswoman of Pope's, he
eagerly availed himself of the occasion offered for learning some new
particulars concerning one by whom so much of his time and thoughts had
been engaged. "Pray, Sir," began the lady, "did not you write a book
about my cousin Pope?" "Yes, Madam;" was the reply. "They tell me 'twas
vastly clever. He wrote a great many plays, did not he?" was the next
question. "I never heard but of one attempt, Madam;" said Warton,
beginning perhaps to expect some discovery, when his hopes were suddenly
crushed by an "Oh! no," from the lady, "I beg your pardon, Sir. That was
Mr. Shakspeare. I always confound them." He had the good breeding to
conceal his disappointment, and to take a courteous leave of the
kinswoman of Pope.

He was regarded with great affection by those whom he had educated. The
opinions of a man so long experienced in the characters of children, and
in the best methods of instruction, are on these subjects entitled to
much notice. "He knew," says his biographer and pupil, "that the human
mind developed itself progressively, but not always in the same
consistent degrees, or at periods uniformly similar." He conjectured,
therefore, that the most probable method of ensuring some valuable
improvement to the generality of boys was not to exact what the
generality are incapable of performing. As a remedy for inaccurate
construction, arising either from apparent idleness or inability, he
highly approved, and sedulously imposed, translation. Modesty, timidity,
or many other constitutional impediments, may prevent a boy from
displaying before his master, and in the front of his class, those
talents of which privacy, and a relief from these embarrassments, will
often give proof. These sentiments were confirmed by that most
infallible test, experience; as he declared (within a few years of his
death) that "the best scholars he had sent into the world were those
whom, whilst second master, he had thus habituated to translation, and
given a capacity of comparing and associating the idiom of the dead
languages with their own."

It is pleasant to observe the impression which men, who have engrossed
to themselves the attention of posterity, have mad