271.

Let the vain tyrant sit amidst his guards, His puny green-room wits and venal bards, Who meanly tremble at the puppet's frown, And for a play-house freedom lose their own; In spite of new-made laws, and new-made kings, The free-born Muse with liberal spirit sings. Bow down, ye slaves! before these idols fall; Let Genius stoop to them who've none at all: Ne'er will I flatter, cringe, or bend the knee To those who, slaves to all, are slaves to me. Actors, as actors, are a lawful game, The poet's right, and who shall bar his claim? And if, o'erweening of their little skill, When they have left the stage they're actors still;

275

266 These sarcastic lines were in general supposed to have been aimed at Mr. Garrick, and were not bestowed in vain; he felt all the force of them, and was rendered exceedingly unhappy at having, by some indiscreet reflections on the author of the Rosciad, provoked a writer at once so irritable and so powerful. The offence given was a suggestion he had dropped, that the author of the Rosciad had become his panegyrist principally with a view to the freedom of the theatre. The unworthy insinuation was thus immediately resented by the Poet. To ensure a reconciliation, Garrick wrote a letter to Churchill, which comprehended an apology for himself and the players, full of encomiums upon the satirist's uncommon vein of poetry, and concluding with deprecating his future wrath. This epistle Garrick read to a friend, expecting his approbation of it in very ample terms, but here he was disappointed; he was told that as Churchill had attacked him on very slight or scarce any provocation, it was too great a condescension on his part to write such a laboured vindication of his conduct, and to adopt a tone of expostulation in which many of the expressions were of too humiliating and even de

280

If to the subject world they still give laws,
With paper crowns, and sceptres made of straws;
If they in cellar or in garret roar,

285

And kings one night, are kings for evermore;
Shall not bold truth, e'en there, pursue her theme,
And wake the coxcomb from his golden dream?
Or if, well worthy of a better fate,
They rise superior to their present state;
If, with each social virtue graced, they blend
The gay companion and the faithful friend;
If they, like Pritchard, join in private life
The tender parent and the virtuous wife;
Shall not our verse their praise with pleasure speak,
Though Mimics bark, and Envy split her cheek?

290

grading a nature for any man of spirit to submit to, and that the writer of the Rosciad, who, was a man of quick discernment and of an undaunted mind, would not think the better of him for such an apology. They were afterwards reconciled by the mediation of Robert Lloyd: and Churchill frequently visited Garrick both at Hampton and in town, but would never accept of any play-house freedom, from him, or from any other manager or actor. In the following lines of the Fribbleriad, Garrick alluded to this contemptuous mention of his occupation:

Have we not read the holy writ
Just publish'd by a reverend wit,
That every Actor is a thing,

A merry Andrew, paper king,
A puppet made of rags and wood,

"The lowest son of earth," mere mud;
Mere public game where'er you meet him,
And cobblers as they please, may treat him;
Slave, coxcomb, venal, and what not,
Ten thousand names that I've forgot.

No honest worth's beneath the Muse's praise;
No greatness can above her censure raise;
Station and wealth to her are trifling things;
She stoops to actors, and she soars to kings.

295

300

Is there a man, in vice and folly bred, To sense of honour as to virtue dead, Whom ties nor human nor divine can bind, Alien from God, and foe to all mankind; Who spares no character; whose every word, Bitter as gall, and sharper than the sword, Cuts to the quick; whose thoughts with rancour

swell;

306

Whose tongue on earth performs the work of hell?
If there be such a monster, the Reviews
Shall find him holding forth against abuse.
"Attack profession!-'tis a deadly breach!—
The Christian laws another lesson teach :-
Unto the end shall charity endure.

310

And candour hide those faults it cannot cure." Thus Candour's maxims flow from Rancour's throat, As devils, to serve their purpose, Scripture quote.

298 Intended for Dr. Smollett, who even in the opinion of his best friends, was too acrimonious in the conduct of the Critical Review, and was at the same time so tremblingly alive to ridicule as to evince much sensibility when retaliated upon by any of the authors he had censured. He had made some very severe strictures on the pamphlet published by Admiral Knowles, as well as on the character of the writer, who ommenced a prosecution against the printer, declaring he only wanted to know the author, that if a gentleman he might obtain the satisfaction of a gentleman from him. In this affair the Doctor behaved with great spirit. Just as sentence was

The Muse's office was by Heaven design'd To please, improve, instruct, reform, mankind; To make dejected Virtue nobly rise

314

Above the towering pitch of splendid Vice;
To make pale Vice, abash'd, her head hang down,
And, trembling, couch at Virtue's awful frown.
Now arm'd with wrath, she bids eternal shame,
With strictest justice, brand the villain's name;
Now in the milder garb of Ridicule

325

She sports, and pleases while she wounds the fool.
Her shape is often varied; but her aim,
To prop the cause of Virtue, still the same,
In praise of mercy let the guilty bawl;
When Vice and Folly for correction call,
Silence the mark of weakness justly bears,
And is partaker of the crimes it spares.

330

But if the Muse, too cruel in her mirth, With harsh reflections wounds the man of worth; If wantonly she deviates from her plan, And quits the actor to expose the man;

going to be pronounced against the printer he came into court, avowed himself the author of the strictures in question, and declared himself ready to give the Admiral any satisfaction he chose. Upon this the Admiral, with equal bad taste and feeling, commenced a fresh prosecution against the Doctor, who was found guilty, fined £100, and condemned to three months imprisonment in the King's Bench. While there he wrote the Adventures of Sir Lancelot Greaves, in which he has described some remarkable characters then his fellow-prisoners.

333 Churchill, much to his credit, blotted out several lines, which, in the first edition of the Rosciad, were of a nature personally injurious to the character of Mr. John Pal The least obnoxious of them are these:

mer.

Ashamed, she marks that passage with a blot,
And hates the line where candour was forgot.

336

340

But what is candour, what is humour's vein, Though judgment join to consecrate the strain, If curious numbers will not aid afford, Nor choicest music play in every word? Verses must run, to charm a modern ear, From all harsh, rugged interruptions clear. Soft let them breathe, as Zephyr's balmy breeze, Smooth let their current flow, as summer seas, Perfect then only deem'd when they dispense A happy tuneful vacancy of sense. Italian fathers thus, with barbarous rage, Fit helpless infants for the squeaking stage. Deaf to the calls of pity, Nature wound, And mangle vigour for the sake of sound. Henceforth farewell then feverish thirst of fame; Farewell the longings for a poet's name;

Truant to love and false to Lucia's charms,
He fled ungrateful from her virtuous arms;
In vain recall'd, renounced love's softer claim,
And hither came to seek the bubble fame.

345

361

The author being convinced that Mr. Palmer had not deserved such severity of treatment, not only struck those and other still more offensive lines out, but likewise made this handsome apology for his misplaced animadversion. The Lucia alluded to was the celebrated Lucy Cooper.

367 Our author, who had studiously formed himself on the model of Dryden, was always a warm advocate for the superiority of that poet over Pope. Davies gives us the fol lowing anecdote on the subject:-" Churchill held Pope sa ⚫heap that one of his most intimate friends assured me, that he had some thoughts of attacking his poetry; and another