Enough of this.

Let private sorrows rest.

As to the Public I dare stand the test:

Dare proudly boast, I feel no wish above
The good of England, and my Country's love."

This man's heart was in the right place. 66 Where is "the bold Churchill," cried Garrick, when he heard of the incident as he travelled in Rome. "What a noble "ruin! When he is quite undone, you shall send him "here, and he shall be shown among the great frag"ments of Roman genius, magnificent in ruin!" But not yet was he quite undone. His weakness was as great as his strength, but his vices were not so great as his virtues. After all, in the unequal conflict thus plainly and unaffectedly revealed by himself, those vices had the worst of it. What rarely happens, indeed, where such high claims exist, has happened here, and the loudest outcry against the living Churchill has had the longest echo in our judgment of the dead; but there is a most affecting voice, in this and other passages of his writings, which enters on his better behalf the final and sufficing appeal. Nor were some of his more earnest contemporaries without the justice and generosity to give admission to it, even while he lived. As hero of a scene which shows the range of his character wider than the limits of his family, his dependents, or his friends (for the kite can be as comfortable to the brood beneath her as the pelican or dove), the young-hearted and enthusiastic Charles Johnson took occasion to depict Charles Churchill in Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea.

Whilst he was one night "staggering" home, as the nar rative tells us, after a supper in which spirited wit and liveliness of conversation, as well as rectitude and sublimity of sentiment, had gilded gross debauchery, a girl of the street addressed him. "Her figure was elegant, and her "features regular; but want had sicklied o'er their beauty; "and all the horrors of despair gloomed through the languid "smile she forced, when she addressed him." The sigh of distress, which never struck his ear without affecting

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his heart, came with double force from such an object. He viewed her with silent compassion for some moments; and, reaching her a piece of gold, bade her go home and shelter herself from the inclemencies of the night at so untimely an hour. Her surprise and joy at this unexpected charity overpowered her. She dropped upon her knees in the wet and dirt of the street, and raising her hands and eyes toward heaven, remained in that posture for some moments, unable to give utterance to the gratitude that filled her heart. Churchill raised her tenderly; and, as he would have pressed some instant refreshment upon her, she spoke of her mother, her father, and her infant brother, perishing of want in the garret she had left. "Good God!" he exclaimed, “ I'll go with you myself directly! But, stop. Let us first procure nourishment from some of the houses kept open "at this late hour for a very different purpose. Come "with me! We have no time to lose." With this he took her to a tavern, loaded her with as much of the best as she could carry, and, putting two bottles of wine in his own pocket, walked with her to her miserable home. There, with what pains he could, he assuaged the misery, more appalling than he fancied possible; passed the whole night in offices of the good Samaritan; nor changed his dress next morning till he had procured them "a new "and better lodging, and provided for their future com"fort; when, repressing as he could their prayers and

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blessings, he took leave." How the recording angel sets down such scenes, and enters up the debtor and creditor account of such a man, My Uncle Toby has written.

The interval of absence from London during the progress of the case of the General Warrants, he passed at Oxford with Colman and Bonnell Thornton; and in Wales with her who had asked from him the protection she knew not where else to seek, and whom he ever after treated as his left-handed wife, united to him by indissoluble ties. On his return, in the autumn of 1763, he heard that Robert Lloyd had been thrown into the Fleet.

The Magazine he was engaged in had failed, and a dispute as to the proprietorship suddenly overwhelmed him with its debts. Churchill went to him; comforted him as none else could; provided a servant to attend him as long as his imprisonment should last; set apart a guinea a-week for his better support in the prison; and at once began a subscription for the gradual and full discharge of his heavy responsibilities. There was all the gratitude of the true poet in this: for, whatever may be said to the contrary, poets are grateful. Dr. Lloyd had been kind to Churchill, and Churchill never deserted Dr. Lloyd's son. And when, some few months later, he pointed his satire against the hollow Mæcenases of the day,-in rebuke to their affected disclaimer of his charge that they would have left a living Virgil to rot, he bade the vain boasters to the Fleet repair, and ask, "with blushes ask, if Lloyd "is there?"

We have called Churchill a true poet, and such, quite apart from his satirical power, we hold him to have been. Here, therefore, may be the place to offer one or two examples of the steady development of his genius, in despite of the reckless misgovernment of his life; and of the higher than satirical uses to which, if longer life had been spared to him, that genius must ultimately have been devoted. For this purpose we anticipate a little, and from a poem published some months after the present date take three passages that will richly assert its claim to have escaped the comparative oblivion into which it has most undeservedly fallen. The first (where the opening lines may recall the happy turns of Goldsmith) is an allusion. to the Indian and American conquests, and the great question of

CIVILIZED AND SAVAGE.

Happy the Savage of those early times,

Ere Europe's sons were known, and Europe's crimes!
Gold, cursed gold! slept in the womb of earth,
Unfelt its mischiefs, as unknown its worth;
In full content he found the truest wealth;
In toil he found diversion, food, and health;

Stranger to ease and luxury of courts,

His sports were labours, and his labours sports;
His youth was hardy, and his old age green;
Life's morn was vigorous, and her eve serene ;
No rules he held, but what were made for use;
No arts he learn'd, nor ills which arts produce;
False lights he follow'd, but believ'd them true;
He knew not much, but liv'd to what he knew.

"Happy, thrice happy now the Savage race,
Since Europe took their gold, and gave them grace!
Pastors she sends to help them in their need,
Some who can't write, with others who can't read,
And on sure grounds the Gospel pile to rear,
Sends missionary felons every year;

Our vices, with more zeal than holy prayers,
She teaches them, and in return takes theirs ;
Her rank oppressions give them cause to rise,
Her want of prudence, means and arms supplies,
Whilst her brave rage, not satisfied with life,
Rising in blood, adopts the scalping-knife;
Knowledge she gives, enough to make them know
How abject is their state, how deep their woe;
The worth of Freedom strongly she explains,

Whilst she bows down, and loads their necks with chains."

The next we may characterise as Churchill's Five Ages, and the whole passage, but especially the close, we cannot but regard as one of the master-pieces in this class of English poetry. The wit, the sense, the thought, the grace and strength of the verse, are incomparable.

INFANCY, CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, MANHOOD, AND OLD AGE.
"INFANCY, straining backward from the breast,
Tetchy and wayward, what he loveth best

Refusing in his fits, whilst all the while

The mother eyes the wrangler with a smile,
And the fond father sits on t'other side,

Laughs at his moods, and views his spleen with pride,
Shall murmur forth my name, whilst at his hand
Nurse stands interpreter, through Gotham's land.

"CHILDHOOD, who like an April morn appears,
Sunshine and rain, hopes clouded o'er with fears,
Pleas'd and displeas'd by starts, in passion warm,
In reason weak, who, wrought into a storm,

Like to the fretful bullies of the deep,

Soon spends his rage, and cries himself asleep,
Who, with a feverish appetite oppress'd,

For trifles sighs, but hates them when possess'd,
His trembling lash suspended in the air,
Half bent, and stroking back his long, lank hair,
Shall to his mates look up with eager glee,
And let his top go down to prate of me.

"YOUTH, who fierce, fickle, insolent and vain, Impatient urges on to manhood's reign, Impatient urges on, yet with a cast

Of dear regard, looks back on childhood past,
In the mid-chase, when the hot blood runs high,
And the quick spirits mount into his eye,
When pleasure, which he deems his greatest wealth,
Beats in his heart, and paints his cheeks with health,
When the chaf'd steed tugs proudly at the rein,
And, ere he starts, hath run o'er half the plain,
When, wing'd with fear, the stag flies full in view,
And in full cry the eager hounds pursue,

Shall shout my praise to hills which shout again,
And e'en the huntsman stop to cry Amen.

"MANHOOD, of form erect, who would not bow Though worlds should crack around him; on his brow Wisdom serene, to passion giving law,

Bespeaking love, and yet commanding awe;
Dignity into grace by mildness wrought;
Courage attemper'd and refined by thought,
Virtue supreme enthroned; within his breast
The image of his Maker deep impress'd;

Lord of this earth, which trembles at his nod,
With reason bless'd, and only less than God;
MANHOOD, though weeping Beauty kneels for aid,
Though honour calls in danger's form array'd,
Though, clothed with sackcloth, Justice in the gates,
By wicked Elders chain'd, redemption waits;
Manhood shall steal an hour, a little hour,
(Is't not a little one?) to hail my power.

"OLD AGE, a second child, by nature curst
With more and greater evils than the first,
Weak, sickly, full of pains; in every breath
Railing at life, and yet afraid of death;
Putting things off, with sage and solemn air,
From day to day, without one day to spare ;