had no great reason to congratulate himself ultimately on the effects of his caricature. Our poet was included in the general warrant that was issued for apprehending Wilkes. He hid himself, however, and avoided imprisonment. In the autumn of 176+ he paid a visit to Mr. Wilkes at Boulogne, where he caught a miliary fever, and expired in his thirtythird year. Churchill may be ranked as a satirist immediately after Pope and Dryden, with perhaps a greater share of humour than either. He has the bitterness of Pope, with less wit to atone for it; but no mean share of the free manner and energetic plainness of Dryden. After the Rosciad and Apology he began his poem of the Ghost (founded on the well-known story of Cock-lane), many parts of which tradition reports him to have composed when scarce recovered from his fits of drunkenness. It is certainly a rambling and scandalous production, with a few such original gleams as might have crossed the brain of genius amidst the bile and lassitude of dissipation. The novelty of political warfare seems to have given a new impulse to his powers in the Prophecy of Famine, a satire on Scotland, which even to Scotchmen must seem to sheath its sting in its laughable extravagance. His poetical epistle to Hogarth is remarkable, amidst its savage ferocity, for one of the best panegyrics that was ever bestowed on that painter's works. He scalps indeed even barbarously the infirmities of the man, but, on the whole, spares the laurels of the artist. The following is his description of Hogarth's powers. "In walks of humour, in that cast of style, Are aptly join'd; where parts on parts depend, There are two peculiarly interesting passages in his Conference. One of them, expressive of remorse for his crime of seduction, has been often quoted. The other is a touching description of a man of independent spirit reduced by despair and poverty to accept of the means of sustaining life on humiliating terms. "What proof might do, what hunger might effect, Shudd'ring at pain, and shrinking back from death, In treason to my soul, descend to bear, Once, at this hour those wounds afresh I feel, Which nor prosperity nor time can heal, * Those wounds, which humbled all that pride of man, But without enumerating similar passages, which may form an exception to the remark, the general tenor of his later works fell beneath his first reputation. His Duellist is positively dull; and his Gotham, the imaginary realm of which he feigns himself the sovereign, is calculated to remind us of the proverbial wisdom of its sages. It was justly complained that he became too much an echo of himself, and that before his short literary career was closed, his originality appeared to be exhausted. INTRODUCTION TO THE ROSCIAD. Roscius deceas'd, each high aspiring play'r What can an actor give? In ev'ry age But what they have they give: could Clive do more, The town divided, each runs several ways, From galleries loud peals of laughter roll, When place of judgment is by whim supplied, And our opinions have their rise in pride; When, in discoursing on each mimic elf, We praise and censure with an eye to self; All must meet friends, and Ackman bids as fair In such a court as Garrick for the chair. |