one of the greatest obligations you have conferred upon me. I have a thousand things to say relative to fools and wise men, Englishmen in France, and Scotsmen in England, but your own affairs are in their own nature so much more pressing, and as to time, so very critical, that I shall postpone every other consideration, and give them that preference in my letter they have in my mind.

Shall you come over in November? A very pithy manner of asking a question, on the decision of which your whole welfare turns, which you submit to others, when you should ask it of yourself, concerning which your friends may mean well, but you only from your own feelings can judge rightly. But take my thoughts thus.

If you stay in France, you will undoubtedly be outlawed: (the consequences of the outlawry are however nothing to a man not foolishly mad after this land of folly). You will not be able to go on now against Halifax, the cause cannot soon be tried. Yet, if I may advise, stay in France. There is scarcely a consideration that could make me think your return to England in November defensible in the eye of common sense.

Have I made out clearly what I mean? It is a cause in which you have too near a concern, for me to be cool and disinterested, and my heart is too much affected to give my head fair play. As there is no man, who is more ready to ask advice,

coming here, and Churchill's upon the former report. The answer was sent from the Duke de Praslin, by the king's orders, to M. St. Foy, Premier Commis des Affaires Etrangeres, in these words, "Les deux illustres J. W. et C. C. peuvent venir en France et a Paris aussi souvent et pour autant de tems, qu'ils le jugeront à propos."

so I am sure there is no one more able to give it you than yourself—I mean your cool and rational self-consult that, and you cannot do wrong.

Lend us Miss Wilkes-I long to see her-and I am sure you will not refuse her, when I tell you that every true Englishman will be happy in seeing her, and consider her (which I hope she will prove) as a forerunner of him, to whom every true Englishman is most essentially indebted.

Friendship great as mine can scarcely forgive your inattention to the care of your health. Reflect that your country demands your life. The cause of liberty is in your hands, and that blessing so much dearer than life, must remain precarious, if not fixed by you. No one can try the Secretary of State, if you do not, and though there is no doubt but there may be arbitrary ministers in future times, yet 'tis with me a matter of question, whether there may ever be another Wilkes.

There is a new print just published of you, very like. I have wrote under it the four following lines from Pope, who is happy in them:

A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride,
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.

I am ever yours,

C. CHURCHILL.

The foregoing letters are almost the only ones which have been preserved, nor does it appear that Churchill was in habitual correspondence with any other individual than Wilkes; his letters are therefore scarce, and consequently valuable. If they,

however, are not of a more interesting nature than some we have seen, there is little cause for regret. The autograph under the portrait to this volume, is a fac simile of the signature to an original letter in the possession of the Publisher of these volumes it is, we fear, too characteristic of the writer:

MY DEAR GARRICK,

HALF drunk-half mad-and quite stript of all my money, I should be much obliged if you would enclose and send by bearer, five pieces: by way of adding to favours already received by yours sincerely,

CHARLES CHURCHILL.

Dr. Kippis in his article of Churchill, in the Biographia Britannica, for several particulars in which he acknowledges himself much indebted to the obliging information of Mr. Wilkes,* alleges that Churchill contributed much of the poetry to "The Library," a respectable periodical miscellany, of which Lloyd was the editor; it extended only to two volumes; on reading the poetry we find only the following epigram which can be safely ascribed to Churchill:

On reading in the Newspaper, that the Players had given a benefit to a distressed Clergyman.

WRITTEN BY A CLERGYMAN.

What fine discourses each revolving year,
On charity, from our divines we hear;

The gift of charity so little theirs,

They send a starving brother to the Players;

And who, says Garrick, wonders at the fact,

Who knows not Priests can talk and Players act.

Chalmers, in his more satisfactory account of Churchill, in the Biographical Dictionary, says that Dr. Kippis expressed more gratitude than the small and imperfect information given justified. We have availed ourselves of both authori ties, rectifying many errors in each.

THE WILL OF CHARLES CHURCHILL

I CHARLES CHURCHILL, of Acton, in the county of Middlesex, Clerk, but now at Boulogne in France, being in an ill state of health, but of sound mind, memory, and understanding, do make, publish, and declare this to be my last Will and Testament, in manner and form following. In the first place, I give to my Wife an annuity of sixty pounds a year for her natural life. Item, I give to Elizabeth Carr, of Turnham Green, in the county of Middlesex, spinster, an annuity of fifty pounds a year during her natural life. I give to his Grace, the Duke of Grafton, the Earl and Countess Temple, John Wilkes, Humphry Cotes, and Robert Lloyd, Esquires, and Mr. Walsh, merchant at Boulogne, each a ring, as a memorial of my regard to their merit. I desire my dear friend, John Wilkes, Esquire, to collect and publish my works with the remarks and explanations he has prepared, and any others he thinks proper to make. I give all the rest, residue, and remainder of my estates, of what nature or kind soever, to my executors hereinafter named, IN TRUST, to be divided equally between my two sons, Charles and John, and the survivor of them. Lastly, I nominate, constitute, and appoint the said Humphry Cotes, and John Churchill, my brother, of Church Street, Westminster, executors of this my last Will, and guardians to my said children. witness, &c. 3rd Nov. 1764.

In

Wilkes, in conformity with the injunction contained in Churchill's Will, professed to be occupied

in the preparation of copious notes for a complete edition of the poems, and in most of his letters alluded to the progress he was making, and to the pleasing but mournful interest he took in the duty. It does not appear, however, that he ever wrote more than the few notes printed in the Appendix to the North Briton, and reprinted by Almon, in his Memoirs and Correspondence of Wilkes, in five volumes; of which Southey has well said that a more catchpenny work has seldom issued from the press upon the decease of any public character. Horace Walpole, in one of his letters, mentioned that Wilkes showed him the notes he had prepared, and that they consisted of nothing but a preliminary observation on each of the poems. If Wilkes did write more fully, he must have destroyed the manuscripts, as none were found after his death; although it is possible he may have been induced to suppress some notes for various motives, some probably of a questionable nature.*

* Something of this sort may be collected from the following passage in one of his letters to Cotes:

"I have a very long note on this passage of my ever honoured Churchill:

She could not starve if there was only Clive.

Farewell.

I have laboured much, but it will remain locked up among my papers, for fear of hurting Jack. I have sent you a variety of MSS. and printed papers, and know not what you have received. Have you that about Calcraft, which is done with much care? If you have not, I will send it to you. If I wanted money, Colonel Keene hinted to me that I might have what I would from him; that is, he would buy me off. I have nobly served him up. How pleased is the dear shade of our friend with all I have done, I am sure of it."