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826. Warburton
"He was a man of vigorous faculties, a mind fervid and vehement,
supplied by incessant and unlimited inquiry, with wonderful
extent and variety of knowledge, which yet had not oppressed his
imagination nor clouded his perspicacity. To every work he
brought a memory full fraught, together with a fancy fertile of
original combinations, and at once exerted the powers of the
scholar, the reasoner, and the wit. But his knowledge was too
multifarious to be always exact, and his pursuits too eager to be
always cautious. His abilities gave him a haughty confidence,
which he disdained to conceal or mollify; and his impatience of
opposition disposed him to treat his adversaries with such
contemptuous superiority as made his readers commonly his
enemies, and excited against the advocate the wishes of some who
favoured the cause. ... He used no allurements of gentle
language, but wished to compel rather than persuade."
Johnson: Pope (Lives of the Poets)
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