William Warburton

William Warburton (24 December 16987 June 1779) was an English writer, literary critic and churchman, Bishop of Gloucester from 1759 until his death. He edited editions of the works of his friend Alexander Pope, and of William Shakespeare.

Life

Warburton was born on 24 December 1698 at Newark, Nottinghamshire, where his father, George Warburton, was town clerk.

At Brant Broughton for 18 years, he spent his time in study, the first result of which was his treatise on the Alliance between Church and State (1736). The book brought Warburton into favour at court, and he probably only missed immediate preferment by the death of Queen Caroline.

A series of articles defending the writings of Alexander Pope against charges of religious unorthodoxy, the Rev. Martin Stafford Smith.

Posthumous publications and biographies His works were edited in seven volumes (1788) by Richard Hurd with a biographical preface, and the correspondence between the two friends—an important contribution to the literary history of the period—was edited by Samuel Parr in 1808. Warburton's life was also written by John Selby Watson in 1863, and Mark Pattison made him the subject of an essay in 1889.

Arms