SOURCE: Fairer, David. Introduction to The Correspondence of Thomas Warton, edited by David Fairer, pp. xvii-xxxvi. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1995.

In the following essay, Fairer describes Warton's importance as a literary figure.

On the evening of 20 March 1776 Dr. Johnson and Boswell, who were on a visit to Oxford together, went round to Trinity College to call on Johnson's friend of over twenty years' standing, Thomas Warton: “We went to Mr. Thomas Warton of Trinity, whom I had long wished to see. We found him in a very elegant apartment ornamented with good prints, and with wax or spermaceti candles before him. All this surprised me, because I had heard that Tom kept low drunken company, and I expected to see a confused dusty room and a little, fat, laughing fellow. In place of which I found a good, sizable man, with most decent clothes and darkish...