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for the pulpit , according to his biographer , was by no means his favourite occupation , for "he had used himself very little to write sermons , till he came to Lincoln ' s Inn . His instructions to his parish had either been delivered
without notes , or extracted from the plainest discourses of our best preachers */* Warburton now accommodated his own indisposition to clerical duty by associating his friend with himself as preacher at Lincoln ' s Inn . Thus Mr . Hurd
would easily become acquainted with rising lawyers and expectant statesmen , and be led into that path which had conducted so many ecclesiastics before him along the road of court favour , to the high places of the church .
Our divine was no sooner thus connected with Warburton , than he had an opportunity of strengthening the attachment between them . It was on the following occasion . The learned author of
< c the Divine Legation of Moses , " had given a curious criticism on the Sixth 4 £ neid , in which he contended that u the descent of Virgil ' s hero into the infernal regions ,
was no other than a figurative de * scription of an initiation ; and particularly , a very exact picture of the spectacles in the Eleusinian mjstenes « f /* Several years after
this opinion was proposed to the learned world , Dr . Jortin published ( in 17 ^ 5 , ) six 4 < Dissertations upon different subjects . ' ? The last was " On the state of
the dead , as described bj . Homer and Virgil / ' He was naturally led to consider the sixth iEneid ,
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when he speaks of W&rburton ' g opinion as *' an elegant conjecture , which had been laid before the public , and set forth to the best advantage , by a learned
friend % " This language , however respectful , was far below the style of confidence in his cru tical decisions with which the disciples of Warburton were
accustomed to approach their mas . ter . Besides that , Warburton in " Julian / ' published a few years before , had mentioned his 4 < learned friend Mr . Jortin , " and " his curious dissertations on
Ecclesiastical Antiquity , composed , like his life , not in the spirit of controversy , nor what is worse , of party , but of truth and can . dour ||/ ' This praise was well deserved , but for the condescension
of praise from Warburton in the judgment of his admirers , nothing less than unqualified homage to his opinions could be an
adequate return . Resentment was roused and soon displayed itself jn a pamphlet " On the delicacy of friendship , a seventh dissertation addressed to the author of
the sixth . " This pamphlet is dated from Lincoln ' s Inn , and well known . as the production of Mr . Hurd ; written probably under the roof of Warburton , though be declares to Lowth , that u the pamphlet was published befqrp he
had so much as heard of % he con . tents § . " It is composed throughout in a style of sarcasm hardly merited by the amiable and accomplished scholar to whom it w * is addressed , and little credit * able to the heart of the writer ?
? Discourse , &c . pp . 5 % . 70 . f D . L . i . Z 70 . J Six Dissertations , p . aoi || Discoiujse on Julian , ad Ed . p . 316 . Note . § A Letter to the Author of the-D . JU 4 th Ed . p . ij * c .
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408 Memoir of the late Richard Hurd \ D . D . Bishop * f Worcetter *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1808, page 408, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2395/page/4/
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