INDEPENDENCE.

THIS poem was published in the last week of September 1764, and is the latest of his productions that appeared in the author's lifetime. He soon afterwards went to France, where he was attacked by that disorder which prematurely swept him to the grave.

The composition of the poem is slovenly, the subject hackneyed, and the thoughts commonplace; some scattered passages, however, display the vigour of the author, and the comparison between the bard and the lord is managed with considerable humour.

In extenuation of the faults we have noticed, it must be observed, that Churchill did not live to publish a second edition of this poem, in which he might have rendered the vein of good sense which pervades it more conspicuous, by bestowing upon it some of those manly graces of poetry, in which, when he took pains, he was so eminently successful.

Adverting to the title, we may observe, that at this time Churchill had so far acquired the independence which he loved, as to be altogether out of debt, and had he lived, he might, what with the profits arising by the sale of his former still popular poems, and a fair prospect from his future effusions, have realized a sufficient competence for life.

Mr. Macaulay, in one of his essays, places Churchill in a very creditable list of authors, who, instead of paying homage to booksellers, could command their respect: Burke, Robertson, the Whartons, Gray, Mason, Gibbon, Adam Smith, Beattie, Sir W. Jones, Goldsmith, and Churchill, were, as he observes, "the most distinguished writers of what may be called the second generation of the Johnsonian age. Of these men Churchill was the only one in whom we can trace the stronger lincaments of that character which, when Johnson first came up to London, was common among authors. Of the rest scarcely any had felt the pressure of severe poverty: aimost all had been early admitted into the most respectable society on an equal footing. They were men of quite a different species from the dependents of Curll and Osborne."

INDEPENDENCE.

HAPPY the bard (though few such bards we find)
Who, 'bove controlment, dares to speak his mind;
Dares, unabash'd, in every place appear,

And nothing fears, but what he ought to fear:
Him fashion cannot tempt, him abject need
Cannot compel, him pride cannot mislead
To be the slave of greatness, to strike sail
When, sweeping onward with her peacock's tail,
Quality in full plumage passes by;

He views her with a fix'd, contemptuous eye, 10
And mocks the puppet, keeps his own due state,
And is above conversing with the great.

Perish those slaves, those minions of the quill, Who have conspired to seize that sacred hill

12 A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate,

Whom heaven kept sacred from the proud and great. Whatever admiration Pope may express for the exemption enjoyed by Elijah Fenton, he took no pains to secure it for himself; he and his friend Swift passed their whole lives in an anxious uncertain intimacy with the aristocracy of the day, and the Dean's maxim, " When a great man makes me keep my distance, my comfort is that he keeps his at the same time," while it assumes a tone of philosophical indifference, was the bitter fruit of wounded pride and disappointed ambi ion.

Where the nine sisters pour a genuine strain, 10
And sunk the mountain level with the plain;
Who, with mean, private views, and servile art,
No spark of virtue living in their heart,
Have basely turn'd apostates; have debased
Their dignity of office: have disgraced,
Like Eli's sons, the altars where they stand;
And caused their name to stink through all the
land;

Have stoop'd to prostitute their venal pen
For the support of great, but guilty men;
Have made the bard, of their own vile accord, 25
Inferior to that thing we call a lord.

What is a lord? Doth that plain simple word
Contain some magic spell? As soon as heard,
Like an alarum bell on Night's dull ear,
Doth it strike louder, and more strong appear 30
Than other words? Whether we will or no,
Through reason's court doth it unquestion'd go
E'en on the mention, and of course transmit
Notions of something excellent, of wit [chaste,
Pleasing, though keen, of humour free, though
Of sterling genius, with sound judgment graced,
Of virtue far above temptation's reach,
And honour, which not malice can impeach?
Believe it not 'twas nature's first intent,
Before their rank became their punishment,
They should have pass'd for men, nor blush'd to

prize

40

The blessings she bestow'd-she gave them eyes,

And they could see-she gave them ears-they

heard

The instruments of stirring, and they stirr'd-
Like us they were design'd to eat, to drink,
To talk, and (every now and then) to think;
Till they, by pride corrupted, for the sake
Of singularity, disclaim'd that make;
Till they, disdaining nature's vulgar mode,
Flew off, and struck into another road,
More fitting Quality, and to our view
Came forth a species altogether new,
Something we had not known, and, could not
know,

45

Like nothing of God's making here below; Nature exclaim'd with wonder-Lords are things Which, never made by me, were made by kings.

A lord, (nor let the honest and the brave, The true old noble, with the fool and knave Here mix his fame; cursed be that thought of mine,

Which with a Bute and Fox should Grafton join)

60 The late Duke of Grafton was then just at the outset of his political career, which was commenced under the banners of the Earl of Chatham. On the dismissal of the Duke of Bedford's ministry in 1765, the Duke of Grafton took the office of secretary of state, with an engagement to support the Marquis of Rockingham's administration. He resigned however in a short time, under the pretence that he could not act without Lord Chatham, nor bear to see his friend Mr. Wilkes abandoned; but that under Lord Chatham he would act in any capacity, not only as general officer, but as a pioneer, and would take up the spade and the mattock. This

A lord, (nor here let censure rashly call
My just contempt of some, abuse of all,
And, as of late, when Sodom was my theme,
Slander my purpose, and my muse blaspheme,
Because she stops not, rapid in her song,
To make exceptions as she goes along,
Though well she hopes to find, another year,
A whole minority exceptions here)

70

A mere, mere lord, with nothing but the name,
Wealth all his worth, and title all his fame,
Lives on another man, himself a blank,
Thankless he lives, or must some grandsire thank
For smuggled honours, and ill-gotten pelf;
A bard owes all to nature, and himself.

was the signal of Lord Rockingham's dismission. When Lord Chatham came in, the duke got possession of the treasury, soon after which Lord Chatham complained of a gradual deviation on the part of the noble duke from every thing that had been settled and solemnly agreed to between them, both as to measures and to men, till at last there were not left two planks together of the ship which had been originally launched. This being the case, Lord Chatham resigned in 1767, when the Duke of Grafton became the sole efficient minister and grand promoter of the measures against Wilkes, until 1770, when he took the privy seal, and Lord North the treasury. His grace continued in office until 1777, when he resigned in consequence of a difference in opinion, as to the conduct expedient to be adopted by the British government towards the revolted Americans.

The praise by way of contrast applied to the Duke of Grafton merely on the score of the pious friendship then subsisting between his grace and Mr. Wilkes, affords a singular instance of the extent to which a blind partiality may mislead a sound