*

with his creditors, who, upon receiving five shillings in the pound, liberated him from their demands, and thus relieved him from the impending horrors of a jail. An anecdote on the subject of this compromise, highly creditable to the character of our author, occurs in the Biographia Britannica, the editor of which states, that in an instance which fell under his own knowledge, as an executor and guardian, Mr. Churchill, as soon as he had acquired some money by the sale of his publications, voluntarily came forward and paid the full amount of the original debt; Dr. Kippis adds, that it was highly probable, from this unsolicited and unexpected act of retribution, that his conduct was the same in corresponding cases.

A short time previous to this transaction, and soon after the renewal of his intimacy with Lloyd, his genius once more reverted to its natural channel. The example and success of his friend, in the walks of literature and poetry, excited a kindly emulation, and stimulated him to the exertion of his abilities. The Bard, a poem in Hudibrastic verse, was his first production after re-entering the regions of Parnassus. It was offered for sale to Mr. Waller, an eminent bookseller in Fleet Street, who without hesitation rejected it as a contemptible performance. The author seems to have coincided in this opinion, as he could never afterwards be induced to publish it. The Conclave, his next attempt, was a satire levelled against the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, Dr. Zachary Pearce, Bishop of Rochester, being Dean. It

In the Conference, Churchill feelingly expresses those emotions of gratitude with which the friendly interference of Dr. Lloyd justly inspired him.

was written in Alexandrine verse, and was remarkably poignant and sarcastic; the characters were nervously drawn, boldly colored, and nicely discriminated. This poem he also designed for publication; but, on its being submitted to the gentlemen of the long robe, they pronounced the satire to be too personal to admit of being printed, without danger of legal animadversion. Though disappointed in the expectations he had formed of the success of his poem, Churchill was not to be deterred by this repulse. He determined to fix his choice upon a subject of more extensive interest, and accordingly selected the drama; of the progress of which he became a critical observer, and after two months close attendance on the theatres, completed the Rosciad. Being encouraged in his present plan by the approbation of a few of those literary friends, to whose judgment the manuscript had been submitted, he was induced to offer the Rosciad to several booksellers, at the moderate sum of twenty pounds; but meeting with a peremptory refusal to give more than five guineas, he resolved to publish it on his account, and it appeared in March, 1761, when the opinion of his friends was confirmed by the rapidity of its sale, which exceeded their most sanguine hopes. The strength, harmony, and natural flow of the verse, the variety of the numbers, the manliness of sentiment, the diversity of characters, the easy vein of humour, and the justice of remark, contributed to render it equally pleasing to the lovers of wit, of poetry, and of criticism.

The circumstances attending the publication of this poem, its popularity, and its being attributed

to Lloyd, Colman, and Thornton,* the reader will find detailed in a subsequent page; we shall here only add, that very few even of his most intimate acquaintance gave Churchill credit for that fertility of thought, and that strength of imagination, which are displayed in the Rosciad. So difficult is it to determine from a man's conversation, the scope and vigour of his understanding.

The judgment passed upon this work by the Critical Reviewers roused our author to the publication of a poetical Apology, addressed to them, which established his fame in the literary world. It is one of the most elaborate and correct of his productions, the diction is regular and connected, and the numbers are happily adapted to the sense, while the satire is spirited and just, pointed and severe. From the publication of this poem in April, 1761, one month after the Rosciad, his literary character might be considered as established.

Lloyd, who by the success of the poem he had himself written on a similar subject, had probably given Churchill the first hint of his subject, was somewhat mortified by the extravagant applause bestowed upon the Rosciad; but the

These gentlemen were dignified by Murphy in his adver tisement to a contemptible poem entitled The Naiads of Fleet Ditch," with the appellation of "The Little Faction," tc which Churchill alluded in these lines of the Rosciad:

Eternal peace shall bless the happy shore,
And little factions break thy rest no more.

Which the reader will find in pp. 115 and 120 of this volume.

The Actor is one of the most pleasing and scientific essays upon theatrical representation in general that has ever been written, and we should be guilty of an act of injustice

decided superiority which Churchill displayed in his subsequent productions, reconciled Lloyd to an inferior station on the Parnassian mount. Not content, however, with a tacit submission, he publicly expressed his acquiescence in the justice of the sentence, in favour of his friend. The ingenuous complacency of mind, and the absence of envy, which we find in the compliments he pays to his friend Churchill, evince no inconsiderable portion of self-knowledge, and are characteristic. of that happy amenity of disposition for which Lloyd was distinguished, and which gained and secured to him the affections of our author, who from this period was his inseparable companion, one sentiment governing the minds, and one purse administering to the wants, of both. Lloyd in the following lines pays the homage of respect to the superior genius of his friend, while he

towards the author of it, were we not here to mention, what escaped our notice in its proper place, that Mr. Sheridan, in his Monody on the death of Garrick, from which we have given an extract in our preliminary remarks on the Rosciad, has freely borrowed all the sentiment and most of the expres sions from these concluding lines of the Actor:

Yet, hapless artist! though thy skill can raise
The bursting peal of universal praise,
Though at thy beck, applause delighted stands,
And lifts, Briareus-like, her hundred hands,
Know, fame awards thee but a partial breath;
Not all thy talents brave the stroke of death.
Poets to ages yet unborn appeal,

And latest times the eternal nature feel.

Though blended here the praise of bard and player,
While more than half becomes the actor's share,
Relentless death untwists the mingled fame,
And sinks the player's in the poet's name.

The pliant muscles of the various face,

The mien that gave each sentence strength and grace,
The tuneful voice, the eye that spoke the mind,
Are gone, nor leave a single trace behind.

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.