in the highest terms of applaufe; and the various and peculiar excellencies of Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Cibber, and Mrs. Clive were celebrated with equal warmth and justice. Excepting Air. Garrick, there was not a fingle man, among the players of that period, who in the firit impreffion entirely efcaped the pout's fatirical lath. Thofe who were the moft eager in expreffing their anger had only the misfortune of being treated with greater feverity in fubfequent editions. in this refpect Mr. Churchill has been blamed by fome writers; and it has been faid, that the Rofciad was not always benefited by the alterations which it received. Perhaps there is little foundation for this affertion: but, however that may be, it is certain that its excellence enabled it firmly to maintain its ground againit all oppofition. Though various pamphlets and poems were published againft it in vindication of the players, they were fo poorly written, that they only ferved to fwell Mr. Churchill's triumph.

The Critical Reviewers happened to be peculiarly unfortunate in the account which they gave of the Rofciad. In fpeaking of the first impreffion of it, they afcribed it, with fome degree of confidence, to Mr. Lloyd; and though they wouldnotabfolu ely pretend to affert that it was folely written by him, they ventured to affirm, that it was the production, jointly or feparately, of the new Triumvirate of Wits, who never let an opportunity flip of finging their own praifes. The Triumvirate here referred to confified of 'Thornton, Colman, and Lloyd. The mistake, however, if it had been delivered in lefs offenfive terms, was pardonable, as the author had not fet his name to the performance. When be afferted his claim to the work, the critics acknowledged their error, but did not do it with a very good grace, or, at leaft, in fuch a manner as was fatisfactory to Mr. Churchill. Befides his not being well pleafed with the account which had been given of his poem, he withed to add fomething further on the fubject of the Rofciad, and to justify the attack he had made on the players. Accord

ingly, in a fhort time he published his "Apology; addreffed to the Critical Reviewers." Whatever reasons these gentlemen had to be diffatisfied with the poem, the players themselves were not fo much offended as they had been with the Rofciad. The author had, indeed, treated the profeffion of acting with great contempt; and had painted, in the strongest colours, the meannes and diftrefs of itinerant companies, and the unhappy fhifts to which they are occafionally reduced. But all this the London actors regarded as a trifling injury, compared with the fatire which had been directed against their perfonal faults. It was, likewife, no small confolation to them, that their maiter, the mighty Rofcius himfelf, had not wholly been fpared: for Mr. Garrick was certainly aimed at in the following lines:

"Let the vain tyrant fit amidst his guards,

His puny green-room wits, and venal bards,
Who mealy tremble at the puppet's frown,
And for a playhouse freedom lofe their own;
In spite of new-made laws, and new-made kings,
The tree-born mufe with lib'ral fpirit fings.
Bow down, ye flaves; before thefe idols fall;
Let genius itoop to them who've none at all;
Ne'er will I flatter, cringe, or bend the knee,
To thofe who, flaves to all, are flaves to me."

The manager felt all the force of thefe farcafic ftrokes, and was extremely unhappy that he fhould have provoked fo irritable and fo powerful a writer. Accordingly, he wrote a long letter to Churchill, which, befides comprehending an apology for himfelf and the players, was full of encomiums upon his uncommon vein of poetry, and contained a kind of deprecation of his future wrath. A friend, to whom Mr. Garrick fhewed the letter, entirely difapproved of it; and informed him that the author of the Kofciad, who was a man of quick difcernment and undaunted fpirit, would not think the better of him for his humiliations and flatteries.

Mr. Churchill being now become fo greatly celebrated, and having, at the fame time, procured a large number of enemies, it was natural that refearches fould be made into his fituation, connections, and character; and upon enquiry it was found that he was not remarkable

bear, gave rife to the "Epiftle to William Hogarth," wherein that eminent painter, whilft juftice is done to his extraordinary talents, is treated with all the feverity of fatire. When Hogarth had formed the defign of holding out Lord Temple, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Wilkes to the public, as objects of ridicule, in a feries of prints, the laft gentleman, by two of their common acquaintance, remonstrated with him against fuch a proceeding, as what would not only be unfriendly in the highest degree, but extremely injudicious. It was urged to him, that fuch a pencil ought to be univerfal and moral, to fpeak to all ages, and to all nations, not to be dipped in the dirt of the faction of a day, of an infignificant part of the country, when it might command the admiration of the whole. It would have been well for Mr. Hogarth if he had liftened to this falutary advice, as by fo doing he would have faved himself from the most extreme mortification. Churchill's fatire ftruck him to the heart, and is thought to have contributed to the acceleration of his deceafe. Mr. Hogarth's revenge against the poet terminated in vamping up an old print of a pug-dog and a bear, which he published under the title of The Bruifer C. Churchill (once the Reverend!) in the character of a Ruffian Hercules, &c." So feeble a blow at his antagonist was but a poor compenfation for the deep wound he had received. It muft ever be lamented, that men of genius, who had been intimate friends, and might have continued fuch as long as they lived, fhould have their union diffolved, and difcord fown among them, by the demon of politics and party.

The poems we have hitherto spoken of employed Mr. Churchill in 1761, 1762, and part of 1763. During the fame time he continued to publifh, at different intervals, "The Ghoft," the fourth and concluding book of which appeared in the laft of the years now mentioned. The most celebrated paffage in this work was the character of Pompofo, intended for Dr. Johnfon, and which was much extolled by that entleman's enemies. The Doctor had

offended Churchill, by declaring that his poetry had but little merit. The only reply which Dr. Johnson made to our author's fatire was, that he thought him a fhallow fellow in the beginning, and that he could fay nothing worfe of him ftill. Highly as we reverence this eminent writer's character and abilities, we muft exprefs ourselves to be of a different opinion. However inferior Churchill might be, in many refpects, to Dr. Johnfon, he certainly did not deferve the appellation of a fhallow fellow. He was undoubtedly poffeffed of a found and vigorous underftanding, though it might not always be prudently and happily applied. The contemptuous terms in which men of real genius are apt to fpeak of each other we have too often had occafion to obferve and lament. With regard to the poem of "The Ghoft," it may in general be remarked, that, befides its being compofed in verses of eight fyllables, it is written in a very defultory and digreffive manner. difficult to determine what plan and defign the author had in view, and, perhaps, he could fcarcely have explained the matter himfelf. The work, therefore, doth not, upon the whole, excite much of our approbation, though there are in it fome fhining and beautiful paffages. Even Lloyd, the great panegyrift of Churchill, hints at the flovenly nature of the compofition, in the following lines, which are, indeed, put into the mouth of the Cobler of Cripplegate:

It is

"The priest, I grant, has fomething clever, A fomething that will last for ever. Let him, in part, be made your pattern, Whose muse, now Queen, and now a flattern, Trick'd out in ROSCIAD rules the roaft, Turns trapes and trollop in the GHOST, By turns both tickles us, and warms, And, drunk or fober, has her charms." Nearly at the time when the last book of the Ghoft appeared, Mr. Churchill published "The Conference," in which he returned to his ufual measure of verfe, the heroic, being the measure wherein he most excelled; though he had lately begun to introduce into it too many profaic lines. The plan of the poem is fimilar to that of one of Pope's fatires. A dialogue is fuppofed to be carried on between the author

and

and a noble Lord, who is reprefented as giving him much good worldly advice, to which he anfwers with great fpirit, and in his replies indulges his fatiric vein with no fmall degree of freedom. One of the moft ftriking paffages in the Conference is that in which he expreffes the deepest contrition for a recent action of his life, that was indeed highly to his dishonour. He had feduced and carried off the daughter of a tradefman in Weftminfter. In a little more than a fortnight his paffion fubfided, and the young woman became very forry for her crime. Accordingly, a wife and judicious friend wrote for her a letter to her father, expreffive of her penitence, and of her defire to return home. Her father, with equal tenderness and prudence, received her into his houfe; and the might have been fully restored to a virtuous conduct, had it not been for the feverity of an elder fifter, who was continually loading her with reproach

es.

Wearied with this ufage, the applied to Churchill, offering to return to him again; which he thought himfelf bound to admit, by the ideas he entertained of gratitude and honour. The true point of virtue would have been, to have provided, as amply as he could, for the young woman's fupport, and to have had no criminal connexion with her in future.

Our author's next poem, if we miftake not, was "The Duellift," in three books, written in verfes of eight fyllables. The occafion of the work is well known, being Mr. Martin's challenge to Mr. Wilkes; and it is not furprifing that Churchill's mufe fhould be awakened in the caufe of his friend. The Duellift has many poetical beauties. It is more concife than the Ghoft, more correct, more directly to the purpofe; though one principal object of it was to fatirize other perfons, befides Mr. Martin.

Mr. Churchill's laft publication in 1763 feems to have been "The Author," and it is one of the moft pleafing of his productions. The former part of it is not remarkably fatirical; but, towards the conclufion, the poet is extremely fevere againft certain wri

5

ters of the time, efpecially fome political writers. The character of Kidgell, the informer, is drawn in a maiterly manner. The opinion of the Monthly Reviewers concerning this poem was, that it was the moft agreeable and the most unexceptionable of all Mr. Churchill's performances, whether they confidered the tendency of the subject, or the execution. "The interefts (fay they) of genius and learning are cordially efpoufed, and powerfully fupported, while the contempt of profeffed ignorance, and the fhallownefs of pretenders to fcience, are juftly expofed, and lafhed by the blameless rod of general fatire." Even with regard to the fatirical ftrokes of a private nature, the critics add, that if the cenfure be juft they fcarcely know how to blame it. The Critical Reviewers, though they had been involved in a conteft with our bard, gave a like teftimony on this occafion. "It is but juftice (they obferve) to Mr. Churchill, to acknowledge that his reputation as a poet feems to rife and increafe with every performance. The Conference' was much fuperior to the Ghoft,' and the Author' is, in our opinion, a better poem than the 'Conference.' The fentiments throughout are, for the moft part, noble and manly, the fatire finely pointed, the expreffion ftrong and nervous."

Churchill's poetical career for 1764 began with the first book of his "Gotham," which was confidered by the generality of readers as fo ftrange and irregular a production, that they could not tell what judgement to form of the writer's intention. As he proceeded in the work, he appeared to greater advantage; and it became manifeft, from the fecond and third books, that it was his chief defign, under the idea of his being proclaimed King of Gotham, to reprefent the real duty of a monarch; in which view much good inftruction is conveyed. This performance is lefs fatirical than most of our author's pieces. Upon the whole, Gotham is not one of the pleasanteft of his poems, though it contains a number of beautiful paffages.

Churchill's next production was "The
Candidate,"