Churchill evidently took Dryden for his model in poetry; and his genius seemed to incline more to the strong and energetic, than to the correct and harmonious style. But his defect was, that he did not sufficiently blend them to give perfection to the former.— His usual manner of composing was this, as I have often heard it from his first publisher:-After he had finally resolved upon a subject, he rambled about the fields alone for some hours, till he had accumulated as many ideas relative to the matter as he could: he then retired to his study, threw the whole upon paper, and, after a very few corrections, offered his work to the bookseller. Some of his lighter works were published in this careless manner; but his friend Wilkes soon put a stop to such a proceeding; which, he justly observed, would soon ruin him in his reputation, both with his party and with the public at large. The hasty temper of Churchill did not like to be sent back so often to the anvil, (as he called it) but Wilkes was peremptory, and the other acquiesed. His Prophecy of Famine, which is, undoubtedly, one of his most finished productions, Wilkes made him correct three different times; and when he brought it in its last improved state, “Yes,” said he, "Charles: now, you may depend upon it, it will do; as it is at once personal, poetical, and political." The following anecdote of Churchill, told by himself in a mixed company at the table of Flexney, his bookseller, will show at once the very great imprudence and dissipation of his character : Having occasion to settle with his publisher, from whom he received above sixty pounds, he staid so late, and got so completely drunk, "His usual custom in the afternoon," that he could not be persuaded to take a coach, or suffer any one to see him home. In this condition he staggered down to Charingcross;, where he fell in company with an unhappy female of the lowest description, and from that moment forgot every other circumstance which occured till the next morning, when he found himself awakened by a very strong and unusual heat playing upon his face and eyes. Not knowing where he was, he stretched out his hand to feel whether any chair was near him, but instead of a chair, he grasped a root with some fresh earth loosely attached to it — This alarmed him; suddenly starting up, he found himself in an asparagus-bed at Battersea, with a wretched trull, fast asleep beside him. His first recollection was about his money, when he exclaimed to her with an oath, "You have picked my pockets, and I suppose brought me here to murder me !" The woman, awaking at this instant, denied the charge, and requested he would count his money, and he would find it all right. Upon examination it proved so: his companion then recounted the adventures of the preceding night, which were as follows:-" that after he had picked her up at Charing-cross, she had knocked at several doors in order to get a bed; but the people, seeing him so drunk and herself so miserable in her appearance, refused them admittance. She then, as her last resource, (it being a fine harvest moon,) took him to Batterseafields; where she often, from her necessities, had been obliged to make use of the same lodging."-"I was so struck with the fidelity and disinterestedness of this woman's conduct," added Churchill, "that I immediately gave her three guineas, took down her name, and directed her to call on me in a week's time, when I got her admitted into the Magdalen." When Lloyd was confined in the Fleet, Churchill commissioned his publisher (Kearsley) to allow him a guinea a week, which was punctually paid till the death of Churchill, when Kearsley suffered in common with the other creditors. The death of this very eccentric man was as unaccountable as his life. He set out, in 1763, on a visit to his friend Wilkes, who was then in Paris, but stopping at Boulogne, he contracted a military fever, which every day growing worse and worse, his friends persuaded him to make a will. This, with great formality, he set up in his bed to do, and bequeathed annuities to the amount of a hundred and ten pounds; though at the same time, if he gave himself the trouble to consider, he would have known that he had not a single guinea (independent of the future sale of his works) that he could call his own. In this state he had a wish to return to England, which his friends imprudently indulged; but the removal from a warm bed to the inclemencies of a sea voyage, terminated his life a few hours after he had landed at Dover. Among his manuscripts was found the commencement of a violent satire against three of his most intimate friends, Lloyd, Thornton, and Colman. Wilkes, who had the inspection of his papers, (and who told this circumstance to a literary friend of mine) very properly burnt them. This fragment consisted of about a hundred lines. His few books, furniture, &c. sold most extravagantly dear. Party, and the popularity of his name as a writer, had stamped a kind of visionary value upon them, which my readers will best judge of, when they are informed that a common steel pen sold for five pounds, and a pair of plated spurs for sixteen guineas! SKAITING. A YOUNG, but experienced skaiter, with the graceful rapidity of the feathered Mercury, was gliding over the ice, when he saw at a distance some confusion, and heard an exclamation that a young lord would certainly be drowned. He immediately checked his course, and then moved towards the youth, whom he beheld holding by the edge of the ice, struggling to extricate himself, and crying loudly and incessantly for assistance. As the skaiter approached, he begged the young lord to be silent, and then holding his hankerchief by one corner, he threw the other to him, at the same time extending his arm to the utmost, that he might keep the weight of his own body as far as possible from the broken part of the ice, and that the sound might have the better chance of sustaining the youth, when he should get upon it. At that instant, a sailor, who viewed the scene from the shore, run to the benevolent skaiter, calling" avast, avast, brother; the sliders on which you stand have no hold; that squalling lubber, is more likely to draw you to the bottom, than you to heave him above board, or tow him ashore; catch fast hold of this here, with your larboard hand." So saying, he jerked the end of a piece of rope to the skaiter, while he himself stood firm on the ice, holding the other end. "Now, boys, bear a hand," cried he; "hilloa, pull away." Thus the young lord was pulled to a safe part of the ice. The sailor, after contemplating him with a look of contempt, said, "Zounds, what a squalling did you make, friend; d--n me, if I have not seen a whole ship's crew go to the bottom with less noise thian came from your jaw-port." Whether it was the shivering condition in which the young lord was that deprived him of recollection, or his being offended at the sailor's speech, cannot be known, but he certainly went away with all the expedition he could, and without saying a word. The generous skaiter, then shaking the sailor by the hand, offered him a gninea for his assistance in saving the young lord from being drowned. "He is not worth the money, by G―d,” said the sailor. “Well, since you insist upon it, master, I'll accept your guinea; my conscience, you have a hard bargain." but on J, M. COWPERIANA. No. XII. "" IF r every human being upon earth could think for one quarter of an hour, as I have done for many years, there might, perhaps, be many miserable men among them, but not an unawakened one could be found from the arctic to the antarctic circle. At present the difference between them and me, is greatly to their advantage. I delight in baubles, and know them to be so; for rested in, and viewed without a reference to their author, what is the earth, what are the planets, what is the sun itself, but a bauble? Better for a man never to have seen them, or to see them with the eyes of a brute, stupid and unconscious of what he beholds, than not to be able to say, 'The MAKER of all these wonders is my friend!'-Their eyes have never been opened, to see that they are trifles; mine have been, and will be, till they are closed for ever. They think a fine estate, a large conservatory, a hot-house, rich as a West India garden, things of consequence; visit them with pleasure, and muse upon them with ten times more. I am pleased with a frame of four lights, doubtful whether the few pines it contains will ever be worth a farthing; amuse myself with a green-house, which Lord Bute's gardener could take upon his back, and walk away with, and when I have paid it the accustomed visit, and watered it, and given it air, I say to myself— This is not mine, 'tis a play-thing lent me for the present, I must leave it soon.' Affectation of every sort is odious, especially in a minister, and more especially an affectation that betrays him into expressions fit only for the mouths of the illiterate. Truth indeed needs no ornament, neither does a beautiful person; but to clothe it therefore in rags, when a decent habit was at hand, would be esteemed preposterous and absurd. The best proportioned figure may be made offensive by beggary and filth, and even truths which came down from Heaven, though they cannot forego their nature, may be disguised and disgraced by unsuitable language. See also the Task, Book II, "In man or woman, but far most in man, And most of all in man that ministers U-VOL. XX. never was a friend to pluralities, they are generally found in the hands of the avaricious, whose insatiable hunger after preferment, proves them unworthy of any at all. They attend much to the regular payment of their dues, but not at all to the spiritual interest of their parishioners. Having forgot their duty, or never known it, they differ in nothing from the laity, except their outward garb, and their exclusive right to the desk and the pulpit. But when pluralities seek the man, instead of being sought by him, and when the man is honest, conscientious, and pious, careful to employ a substitute in those respects like himself, and not contented with this, will see with his own eyes that the concerns of his parishes are. decently and diligently administered: in that case, considering the dearth of such characters in the ministry, I think it an event advantageous to the people, and much to be desired by all who regret the great and apparent want of sobriety and earnestness among the clergy. A man who does not seek a living merely as a pecuniary emolument, has no need (in my judgment) to refuse one because it is so. He means to do his duty, and by doing it, he earns his wages. The sabbath may be considered-First, as a commandment, no less binding upon modern Christians than upon ancient Jews, because the spiritual people amongst them did not think it enough to abstain from manual occupations upon that day, but entering more deeply into the meaning of the precept, allotted those hours they took from the world in the cultivation of holiness in their own souls; which ever was and ever will be, a duty incumbent upon all who ever heard of a sabbath, and is of perpetual obligation both upon Jews and Christians. Secondly, as a privilege. Thirdly, as a sign of that covenant, by which believers are entitled to a rest that yet remaineth. Fourthly, as the sine-quâ-non of the Christian character: and upon this head, I should guard against being misunderstood to mean no more than two attendances upon public worship, which is a form complied with by thousands who never kept a sabbath in their lives. Consistence is necessary to give substance and solidity to the whole. To sanctify the day at church, and to trifle it away out of church, is profanation, and vitiates all. After all, I could ask my catechismen one short question- Do you love the day, or do you not? If you love it, you will never enquire how far you may safely deprive yourself of the enjoyment of it. If you do not love it, and you find yourself obliged in conscience to acknowledge it, that is an alarming symptom, and ought to make you trem |