genius, in temper and in situation, were dangerous companions to each other. It appears, however, by the Poet's own account, that he was driven into excess by embarrassments, and not, as is usually represented, reduced to distress at first by his own imprudence; thus we should interpret these lines, for Churchill never palliated his own faults.

What proof might do, what hunger might effect,
What famished Nature, looking with neglect
On all she once held dear, what fear, at strife
With fainting virtue, for the means of life,
Might make this coward flesh, in love with breath,
Shuddering at pain, and shrinking back from death,
In treason to my soul, descend to bear,
Trusting to fate, I neither know nor care.

Once, at this hour, those wounds afresh I feel,
Which nor prosperity nor time can heal,

Those wounds which fate severely hath decreed,
Mentioned or thought of, must for ever bleed;
Those wounds which humbled all that pride of man
Which brings such mighty aid to virtue's plan;
Once, awed by Fortune's most oppressive frown,
By legal rapine to the earth bowed down,
My credit at last gasp, my state undone,
Trembling to meet the shock I could not shun,
Virtue gave ground, and black despair prevailed;
Sinking beneath the storm, my spirits failed,
Like Peter's faith, till one, a friend indeed,
May all distress find such in time of need,
One kind good man, in act, in word, in thought,
By virtue guided, and by wisdom taught,
Image of Him whom Christians should adore,

Stretched forth his hand, and brought me safe to shore.

Lloyd's father was the friend who saved him; he interfered with the creditors, and persuaded them to receive five shillings in the pound. When Churchill had acquired money by his publications he voluntarily paid the full amount of his original debts.

He now commenced Author. The first poem

which he offered to the booksellers was in Hudibrastic verse, and entitled the Bard. It was rejected without any hesitation as a contemptible performance; an opinion in which he seems himself to have afterwards coincided. The Conclave was his next attempt at satire, aimed against the Dean and Chapter of Westminster; but this was thought by the lawyers too personal to be printed without danger. It was written in anapæstic measure, not Alexandrine as the Editor says in the life, and the characters are said to have been nervously drawn, boldly coloured, and nicely discriminated. If the poem is in existence, and so we understand from one of the notes, its virulence and personality should not now have prevented its publication. Nearly half a century has elapsed since it was written, and that length of time must have removed all to whom it could give pain. The poem would be the more interesting inasmuch as it is written in a metre which will not admit of his usual ruggedness of versification. After the second failure he produced the Rosciad, and offered it to several booksellers for five guineas. Luckily for Churchill he could find no purchaser, and therefore ventured to publish it on his own account. The unexampled success of this poem is well known, and the subsequent history of his literary

career.

Had it been Churchill's fortune, like Savage and Burns, to have found a friendly biographer, who would rather have extenuated something than have set down aught in malice, his latter conduct would have appeared in a very different light. He separated from his wife;-it is admitted that she possessed little of the spirit of conciliation, and that her conduct opened some field for recrimi.

nation;—what provision he made for her in his life is not stated, but it was not in his nature to be ungenerous, and he left her an annuity of £60. He threw off the gown, and totally renounced all claim to the clerical character when his theological researches had terminated in disbelief. What other course was left him? "He indulged in all the excesses to which youth and unbridled licentiousness could prompt;" but this is the accusation of his enemies: late hours and convivial meetings do not necessarily imply licentiousness, and his epistle to Lloyd is the vindication of an imprudent and irregular man, not of a debauched one. The authority of Chrysal is nothing. If novels and satire are to be quoted as proof in the next generation-God help us! As for the assertion that he shortened his life by his debaucheries, it is utterly false. He died of a miliary fever. It is equally false that his last words were-"What a fool I have been." Such pious frauds are usually invented by a man's enemies, and there are weak people enough in the world to believe them. In worldly matters Churchill had not been a fool; wealth is the test of wisdom in the world, and he was accumulating money.

The worst action of his life is thus related by his biographer:

66

Early in 1763, he had formed an intimacy with Miss C., the daughter of a tradesman in Westminster; this poor young creature he seduced, prevailed on her to quit her father's roof, and lead a life of infamy with him. Satiated by a fortnight's gratification of his passion, during which short period she had full leisure afforde her for sorrow and repentance, they prevaile upon a real friend to communicate her penitence

and sufferings to her father, who, by their joint entreaties, was induced again to receive her into his family. This instance of parental tenderness sensibly affected her, and she most probably would, by her future conduct, have justified the lenient kindness of her father, and having once felt the pangs of vice, would never again have deviated from the paths of virtue, had she not been continually exposed to the taunts and goadings of an elder sister, the bitterness of whose reproaches induced this unhappy young woman to apply once more to Churchill for protection. Actuated by a false sense of gratitude and honour, he thought himself imperiously bound to receive her to his arms; had he made ample provision for her support, and declined further intercourse, his former offence might admit of extenuation, but this renewal of the connexion aggravated the crime. While this transaction was fresh in the public mind, and with a view, in some measure to efface the unfavourable impression it had made, he published the Conference, in which the emotions of a mind not hardened in guilt, and severely labouring under self-conviction, are pathetically described, and several passages of that poem are strongly expressive of manly sensibility and acute feeling."

"Self-con

Let us add the passage alluded to. demnation," says the Editor, "so just, so public, and so severe, if it does not excite compassion, must at least disarm revenge."

"Ah! what, my Lord, hath private life to do
With things of public nature? why to view
Would you thus cruelly these scenes unfold
Which without pain and horror to behold,
Must speak me something more or less than man,

Which friends may pardon, but I never can?
Look back! a thought which borders on despair,
Which human nature must, yet cannot bear.
'Tis not the babbling of a busy world,
Where praise and censure are at random hurled,
Which can the meanest of my thoughts control,
Or shake one settled purpose of my soul:
Free and at large, might their wild curses roam,
If all, if all, alas! were well at home.

No-'tis the tale which angry conscience tells,
When she with more than tragic horror swells
Each circumstance of guilt; when stern but true,
She brings bad actions forth into review,
And like the dread handwriting on the wall,
Bids late remorse awake at reason's call:

Armed at all points, bids scorpion vengeance pass,
And to the mind, holds up reflection's glass,

The mind which, starting, heaves the heart-felt groan,
And hates that form she knows to be her own."

If we are not deceived by the initial, he left this lady £50 a-year for her life. These were his faults, let his virtues be weighed against them. His payment of his debts has been already mentioned. The fearless zeal with which he came forward as a political writer, and the pure principles which all his writing so manfully inculcate, would alone be sufficient to evince that he has deserved well of mankind. Even his enemies never denied that he had a heart to feel com

passion, and a hand to bestow relief. He it was who allowed poor Lloyd a guinea a-week, and a servant to attend him, when he was in the Fleet prison, having been deserted by his three summer friends,* whose whole united stock of goodness will not be worth so much to them in purgatory as the fruition of one Ave Maria equally divided among a whole fraternity. Churchill was a true friend and a true Englishman.

* Bonnell Thornton, Colman, and Bentley.