XXX11 LIFE OF CHARLES CHURCHILL.

justly appreciates the extent of his own poetic powers:

For me, who labour with poetic sin,
Who often woo the muse I cannot win,
Whom pleasure first a willing poet made,
And folly spoilt by taking up the trade,
Pleased I behold superior genius shine,
Nor tinged with envy, wish that genius mine,
To Churchill's muse can bow with decent awe,
Admire his mode, nor make that mode my law;
Both may, perhaps, have various powers to please;
Be his the strength of numbers, mine the ease.

The profits accruing from the extensive sale of the Rosciad and the Apology, amounting to upwards of £1000, enabled him to make that full restitution to his creditors, which has been noticed; the merit arising from this noble, because voluntary, act of justice, was tarnished by the general irregularity of his conduct. The celebrity he

Garrick pilfered the same thought in his prologue to the Clandestine Marriage:

The painter dead, yet still he charms the eye.
While England lives his fame can never die.
But he "who struts his hour upon the stage,"
Can scarce extend his fame for half an age,
Nor pen nor pencil can the actor save,

The art and artist share one common grave.

Colley Cibber was the original source from whence they all drew the observation. Speaking of Betterton he observes: "Pity it is that the momentary beauties from an harmonious elocution cannot, like those of poetry, be their own record! that the animated graces of the player can live no longer than the instant breath and motion that presents them; or at best can but faintly glimmer through the memory or imperfect attestation of a few surviving spectators."

That arch plagiarist, Sterne, has observed with Solomon, that there is nothing new under the sun; it is only pouring out of one vial into another. Sheridan, however, frequently adopted the more compendious expedient of taking the whole vial, and only altering the label.

had acquired, obtained for him an immediate introduction to the society of men whose literary endowments were disgraced by the utmost dissoluteness of life and manners. His nocturnal revels and frequent absences from home rendered every return to it more irksome, and the altercations which ensued between him and Mrs. Churchill, who possessed but little of the spirit of conciliation, and whose conduct opened some field for recrimination,* soon ended in a total separation. This circumstance, together with the outcry raised against him by his parishioners for his disregard of his spiritual functions, and the unbecoming 'nature of his dress, induced him to resign the curacy and lectureship of St. John's,† which but

* Dr. Kippis, in the Biographia Britannica, observes, that it was always understood in Westminster, that Mrs. Churchill's imprudence kept too near a pace with that of her husband.

†The dress he now adopted was a blue coat with metal buttons, a gold laced waistcoat, a gold laced hat and ruffles. The Bishop of Rochester remonstrated with him on the impropriety of his dress, at the instance of the parishioners of St. John's, which circumstance, together with Lloyd's epigram on the occasion, are given in p. 185 of this volume.

The following lines appeared in some of the public papers on the occasion:

Tired with attendance, sick of daily prayer,

Which hardly yielded fourscore pounds a year;
Grown so averse from praise in any way,
He would praise God no longer tho' for pay,
And taught besides, which suited more his nature,
That Satan gave a better price for satire;
Raised all his pensioners to high repute,
By scandal on the government and Bute,
Copying his patrons, Churchill took a stride
From Heaven's service, to the other side,
But loath the fashionable rule to break,
Went to St. John's a formal leave to take,
There with the pride of resignation fired,
Bow'd to the altar, quitted, and retired.

a few years before had been conferred on him, in consequence of the high character he possessed for learning and morality. He now renounced all claim to the clerical character, became quite a man of the town, and indulged in all the excesses to which youth, and unbridled licentiousness prompted.*

To vindicate his conduct from the just censure of the public, Churchill addressed his next poem, entitled Night,† to Lloyd, his friend and partner in excess. This vindication proceeds on the exploded doctrine, that the barefaced avowal of vice is less culpable than the practice of it, under an hypocritical assumption of virtue. The measure of guilt in the individual, is, we conceive, tolerably equal; but the sanction and example afforded in

Quoth he, if throwing up can give a right

T'oppose the government with all one's might,
I'm free to counteract by rule of parity,

All christian meekness and all christian charity.

*The irregular conduct of our author, and an interesting incident which occurred in the course of it, have been so well told by Charles Johnson, in his masterly but caustic satire, entitled "Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea," that we cannot do an act of greater justice to Churchill, or one that will afford more pleasure to our readers, than by giving an extract from the narrative at the conclusion of these memoirs, especially as it is the one particularly alluded to by Cowper in his letter on the merits and character of Churchill. The pathetic incident related, so well accords with the character of our author, by which he was always enthusiastically impelled to follow the first impulses of his heart, that we see no reason for doubting of his being the real hero of the affecting tale.

† To avoid the necessity of accumulated references, we beg to refer our readers to the preliminary remarks on each poem, and to our notes in general, for several detached anecdotes of the life and writings of our author. They appeared to us necessary for the elucidation of the text, and we could not reintroduce them in this part of our volume, without justly incurring blame for trespassing on the patience of our readers by unnecessary repetitions.

the former case, render it an evil of tenfold magnitude.

The next work he published was the first book of the Ghost, a poem which he afterwards continued at intervals, and which he seems to have composed of several disjointed plans, strung together, and forming a sort of poetical commonplace book, in which he indulged in a greater license of digression, and carelessness of diction, than hitherto. The experiment failed, and excepting a few well drawn characters, the author's reputation received no great accession of public favour by the experiment.

In the year 1762, Churchill plunged deeper and more irrecoverably into a course of debauchery and faction, by the commencement of his acquaintance with Mr. Wilkes, whose coadjutor he became in that vehicle of nationality and sedition, the North Briton, a publication replete with party wit, scurrility, and political information, the effect of which upon the public was considerable, and to its formidable attack, perseverance, and intrepidity, may be attributed the defeat and resignation of Lord Bute. Of the particular share Churchill took in that publication we are ignorant; but Mr. Kearsley, in his examination before the secretaries of state, told them, that Mr. Charles Churchill received the profit arising from its sale. This circumstance rendered him of importance enough to be included with Wilkes in the list of those whom the messengers had verbal instructions to apprehend, under the general warrant issued for that purpose, the execution of which gave rise to the most popular and only beneficial portion of the contest that ensued with government. ChurIchill was with Wilkes at the time the latter was

apprehended, and only escaped owing to the messengers' ignorance of his person, and the presence of mind with which Wilkes addressed him by the name of Thompson..

One of many instances of the popularity of Wilkes and of the North Briton, may be collected from the fact that when one Williams, a bookseller in Fleet Street, stood on the pillory on the 15th of February, 1765, for selling No. 45, he was drawn to it by the populace in a hackney coach covered with laurel, which was transferred to the pillory, and a purse of two hundred guineas, collected on the spot, was presented to him on his discharge.

The materials of the Prophecy of Famine were first proposed to Churchill as the subject of a paper for the North Briton; but on more mature consideration, he determined upon converting them into a poem. This he did with extraordinary success and felicity of expression; and, though we are far from justifying the spirit of nationality with which it is imbued, we cannot but consider it as one of the most admirable specimens of satirical composition in the language. Of this poem it has been observed, that the author displays peculiar skill in throwing his thoughts into poetical paragraphs, so that the sentence swells to the conclusion, as in prose.

Hogarth was the next victim immolated at the shrine of party; and, though he began the attack, he was wholly unprepared either to support his own cause, or to ridicule successfully that of his opponents. The wretched attempts he made to expose the failings of Earl Temple, and the Earl of Chatham; and his coarse caricature of our author, served only to confirm the poet's assertion