To be recognized
by the most eminent man of letters of the day was to receive a kind of
certificate of excellence, valuable to a man who had not the regular
university hall-mark. More definite results followed. Pope introduced
Warburton to Allen, and to Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield. Through
Murray he was appointed preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and from Allen he
derived greater benefits--the hand of his niece and heiress, and an
introduction to Pitt, which gained for him the bishopric of Gloucester.
Pope's allegiance to Bolingbroke was not weakened by this new alliance.
He sought to bring the two together, when Bolingbroke again visited
England in 1743. The only result was an angry explosion, as, indeed,
might have been foreseen; for Bolingbroke was not likely to be
well-disposed to the clever parson whose dexterous sleight-of-hand had
transferred Pope to the orthodox camp; nor was it natural that
Warburton, the most combative and insulting of controversialists, should
talk on friendly terms to one of his natural antagonists--an antagonist,
moreover, who was not likely to have bishoprics in his gift. The
quarrel, as we shall see, broke out fiercely over Pope's grave.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] "No letter with an envelope could give him more delight," says
Swift.
[21] It would be out of place to discuss this in detail; but I may say
that Pope's crude theory of the state of nature, his psychology as to
reason and instinct, and self-love, and his doctrine of the scale of
beings, all seem to have the specific Bolingbroke stamp.
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