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While young Arion sleeps, before his sight
Tumultuous swim the visions of the night.
Now blooming Anna, with her happy swain,
Approached the sacred hymeneal fane:
Anon tremendous lightnings flash between ;
And funeral pomp, and weeping loves are seen!
Now with Palemon up a rocky steep,
Whose summit trembles o'er the roaring deep,
With painful step he climbed ; while far above,
Sweet Anna charmed them with the voice of love,
Then sudden from the slippery height they fell,
While dreadful yawned beneath the jaws of hell.
Amid this fearful trance, a thundering sound
He hears and thrice the hollow decks rebound.
Upstarting from his couch, on deck he sprung;
Thrice with shrill note the boatswain's whistle rung;
All hands unmoor!' proclaims a boistrous cry:
'All hands unmoor!' the cavern rocks reply.
Roused from repose, aloft the sailors swarm,
And with their levers soon the windlass arm.
The order given, upspringing with a bound

They lodge their bars, and wheel their engine round:
At every turn the clanging pauls resound.
Uptorn reluctant from its oozy cave,
The pondrous anchor rises o'er the wave.
Along their slippery masts the yards ascend,
And high in air the canvass wings extend:
Redoubling cords the lofty canvass guide,
And through inextricable mazes glide.
The lunar rays with long reflection gleam,
To light the vessel o'er the silver stream:
Along the glassy plain serene she glides,
While azure radiance trembles on her sides.
From east to north the transient breezes play;
And in the Egyptian quarter soon decay.
A calm ensues; they dread the adjacent shore;
The boats with rowers armed are sent before;
With cordage fastened to the lofty prow,
Aloof to sea the stately ship they tow.
The nervous crew their sweeping oars extend;
And pealing shouts the shore of Candia rend.
Success attends their skill; the danger's o'er;
The port is doubled, and beheld no more.
Now morn, her lamp pale glimmering on the sight,
Scattered before her van reluctant night.
She comes not in refulgent pomp arrayed,
But sternly frowning, wrapt in sullen shade.
Above incumbent vapours, Ida's height,
Tremendous rock! emerges on the sight.
North-east the guardian isle of Standia lies,
And westward Freschin's woody capes arise.

With winning postures, now the wanton sails
Spread all their snares to charm the inconstant gales.
The swelling stu'n-sails now their wings extend,
Then stay-sails sidelong to the breeze ascend:
While all to court the wandering breeze are placed;
With yards now thwarting, now obliquely braced.
The dim horizon lowering vapours shroud,
And blot the sun, yet struggling in the cloud;
Through the wide atmosphere, condensed with haze,
His glaring orb emits a sanguine blaze.
The pilots now their rules of art apply,
The mystic needle's devious aim to try.
The compass placed to catch the rising ray,2
The quadrant's shadows studious they survey!
Along the arch the gradual index slides,
While Phoebus down the vertic circle glides.
Now, seen on ocean's utmost verge to swim,
He sweeps it vibrant with his nether limb.

1 Studding-sails are long narrow sails, which are only used in fine weather and fair winds, on the outside of the larger square-sails. Stay-sails are three-cornered sails, which are hoisted up on the stays, when the wind crosses the ship's course either directly or obliquely.

2 The operation of taking the sun's azimuth, in order to discover the eastern or western variation of the magnetical needle.

Their sage experience thus explores the height,
And polar distance of the source of light;
Then through the chiliad's triple maze they trace
The analogy that proves the magnet's place.
The wayward steel, to truth thus reconciled,
No more the attentive pilot's eye beguiled.
The natives, while the ship departs the land,
Ashore with admiration gazing stand.
Majestically slow, before the breeze,

In silent pomp she marches on the seas.
Her milk-white bottom cast a softer gleam,
While trembling through the green translucent stream.
The wales, that close above in contrast shone,
Clasp the long fabric with a jetty zone.
Britannia, riding awful on the prow,
Gazed o'er the vassal-wave that rolled below:
Where'er she moved, the vassal-waves were seen
To yield obsequious, and confess their queen.
High o'er the poop, the flattering winds unfurled
The imperial flag that rules the watery world.
Deep-blushing armors all the tops invest;
And warlike trophies either quarter drest:

2

Then towered the masts; the canvass swelled on high;
And waving streamers floated in the sky.
Thus the rich vessel moves in trim array,

Like some fair virgin on her bridal day.

Thus like a swan she cleaves the watery plain,

The pride and wonder of the Ægean main!

[The ship, having been driven out of her course from Candia, is overtaken by a storm.]

As yet amid this elemental war,

That scatters desolation from afar,

Nor toil, nor hazard, nor distress appear

To sink the seamen with unmanly fear.
Though their firm hearts no pageant honour boast,
They scorn the wretch that trembles in his post;
Who from the face of danger strives to turn,
Indignant from the social hour they spurn.
Though now full oft they felt the raging tide,
In proud rebellion climb the vessel's side,
No future ills unknown their souls appal';
They know no danger, or they scorn it all!
But even the generous spirits of the brave,
Subdued by toil, a friendly respite crave;
A short repose alone their thoughts implore,
Their harassed powers by slumber to restore.

Far other cares the master's mind employ;
Approaching perils all his hopes destroy.
In vain he spreads the graduated chart,
And bounds the distance by the rules of art;
In vain athwart the mimic seas expands
The compasses to circumjacent lands.
Ungrateful task! for no asylum traced,
A passage opened from the watery waste.
Fate seemed to guard with adamantine mound,
The path to every friendly port around.
While Albert thus, with secret doubts dismayed,
The geometric distances surveyed;

On deck the watchful Rodmond cries aloud,
Secure your lives-grasp every man a shroud!
Roused from his trance he mounts with eyes aghast,
When o'er the ship in undulation vast,

A giant surge down-rushes from on high,
And fore and aft dissevered ruins lie.

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* the torn vessel felt the enormous stroke;
The boats beneath the thundering deluge broke;
Forth started from their planks the bursting rings,
The extended cordage all asunder springs.
The pilot's fair machinery strews the deck,
And cards and needles swim in floating wreck.

1 The wales here alluded to are an assemblage of strong planks which envelope the lower part of the ship's side, wherein they are broader and thicker than the rest, and appear somewhat like a range of hoops, which separates the bottoni from the upper works.

The balanced mizen, rending to the head,
In streaming ruins from the margin fled.
The sides convulsive shook on groaning beams,
And, rent with labour, yawned the pitchy seams.
They sound the well, and terrible to hear!
Five feet immersed along the line appear.
At either pump they ply the clanking brake,2
And turn by turn the ungrateful office take.
Rodmond, Arion, and Palemon, here,
At this sad task all diligent appear.
As some fair castle, shook by rude alarms,
Opposes long the approach of hostile arms;
Grim war around her plants his black array,
And death and sorrow mark his horrid way;
Till in some destined hour, against her wall,
In tenfold rage the fatal thunders fall;
The ramparts crack, the solid bulwarks rend,
And hostile troops the shattered breach ascend;
Her valiant inmates still the foe retard,
Resolved till death their sacred charge to guard:
So the brave mariners their pumps attend,
And help incessant by rotation lend;
But all in vain-for now the sounding cord,
Updrawn, an undiminished depth explored.
Nor this severe distress is found alone;
The ribs oppressed by ponderous cannon groan.
Deep rolling from the watery volume's height,
The tortured sides seem bursting with their weight.
So reels Pelorus, with convulsive throes,

When in his veins the burning earthquake glows;
Hoarse through his entrails roars the infernal flame;
And central thunders rend his groaning frame;
Accumulated mischiefs thus arise,

And fate vindictive all their skill defies;
One only remedy the season gave-

To plunge the nerves of battle in the wave.
From their high platforms thus the artillery thrown,
Eased of their load, the timbers less shall
groan;
But arduous is the task their lot requires;
A task that hovering fate alone inspires!
For, while intent the yawning decks to ease,
That ever and anon are drenched with seas,
Some fatal billow, with recoiling sweep,
May whirl the helpless wretches in the deep.
No season this for counsel or delay!
Too soon the eventful moments haste away;
Here perseverance, with each help of art,
Must join the boldest efforts of the heart.
These only now their misery can relieve;
These only now a dawn of safety give;
While o'er the quivering deck, from van to rear,
Broad surges roll in terrible career;
Rodmond, Arion, and a chosen crew,
This office in the face of death pursue.
The wheeled artillery o'er the deck to guide,
Rodmond descending claimed the weather-side.
Fearless of heart, the chief his orders gave,
Fronting the rude assaults of every wave.
Like some strong watch-tower nodding o'er the
deep,

Whose rocky base the foaming waters sweep,
Untamed he stood; the stern aerial war
Had marked his honest face with many a scar.
Meanwhile Arion, traversing the waist,3
The cordage of the leeward guns unbraced,
And pointed crows beneath the metal placed.

1 The well is an apartment in the ship's hold, serving to inclose the pumps. It is sounded by dropping a graduated iron rod down into it by a long line. Hence the increase or diminution of the leaks are easily discovered.

* The brake is the lever or handle of the pump, by which it

is wrought.

3 The waist of a ship of this kind is a hollow space of about five feet in depth, contained between the elevations of the quarter deck and forecastle, and having the upper deck for its base or platform.

Watching the roll, their forelocks they withdrew,
And from their beds the reeling cannon threw ;
Then, from the windward battlements unbound,
Rodmond's associates wheel the artillery round;
Pointed with iron fangs, their bars beguile
The ponderous arms across the steep defile;
Then hurled from sounding hinges o'er the side,
Thundering, they plunge into the flashing tide.

[The tempest increases, but the dismantled ship passes the island of St George.]

But now Athenian mountains they descry,
And o'er the surge Colonna frowns on high.
Beside the cape's projecting verge is placed
A range of columns long by time defaced;
First planted by devotion to sustain,

In elder times, Tritonia's sacred fane.
Foams the wild beach below with maddening rage,
Where waves and rocks a dreadful combat wage.
The sickly heaven, fermenting with its freight,
Still vomits o'er the main the feverish weight:
And now while winged with ruin from on high,
Through the rent cloud the ragged lightnings fly,
A flash quick glancing on the nerves of light,
Struck the pale helmsman with eternal night:
Rodmond, who heard a piteous groan behind,
Touched with compassion, gazed upon the blind;
And while around his sad companions crowd,
He guides the unhappy victim to the shroud,
Hie thee aloft, my gallant friend, he cries;
Thy only succour on the mast relies!
The helm, bereft of half its vital force,

Now scarce subdued the wild unbridled course;
Quick to the abandoned wheel Arion came,
The ship's tempestuous sallies to reclaim.
Amazed he saw her, o'er the sounding foam
Upborne, to right and left distracted roam.
So gazed young Phaeton, with pale dismay,
When, mounted on the flaming car of day,
With rash and impious hand the stripling tried
The immortal coursers of the sun to guide.
The vessel, while the dread event draws nigh,
Seems more impatient o'er the waves to fly:
Fate spurs her on. Thus, issuing from afar,
Advances to the sun some blazing star;
And, as it feels the attraction's kindling force,
Springs onward with accelerated force.

With mournful look the seamen eyed the strand,
Where death's inexorable jaws expand;
Swift from their minds elapsed all dangers past,
As, dumb with terror, they beheld the last.
Now on the trembling shrouds, before, behind,
In mute suspense they mount into the wind.
The genius of the deep, on rapid wing,
The black eventful moment seemed to bring.
The fatal sisters, on the surge before,
Yoked their infernal horses to the prore.
The steersmen now received their last command
To wheel the vessel sidelong to the strand.
Twelve sailors, on the foremast who depend,
High on the platform of the top ascend:
Fatal retreat! for while the plunging prow
Immerges headlong in the wave below,
Down-pressed by watery weight the bowsprit bends,
And from above the stem deep crashing rends.
Beneath her beak the floating ruins lie;
The foremast totters, unsustained on high;
And now the ship, fore-lifted by the sea,
Hurls the tall fabric backward o'er her lee:
While, in the general wreck, the faithful stay
Drags the maintop-mast from its post away.
Flung from the mast, the seamen strive in vain
Through hostile floods their vessel to regain.
The waves they buffet, till, bereft of strength,
O'erpowered, they yield to cruel fate at length.

The hostile waters close around their head,
They sink for ever, numbered with the dead!

Those who remain their fearful doom await,
Nor longer mourn their lost companions' fate.
The heart that bleeds with sorrows all its own,
Forgets the pangs of friendship to bemoan.
Albert and Rodmond and Palemon here,
With young Arion, on the mast appear;
Even they, amid the unspeakable distress,
In every look distracting thoughts confess ;
In every vein the refluent blood congeals,
And every bosom fatal terror feels.

Inclosed with all the demons of the main,
They viewed the adjacent shore, but viewed in vain.
Such torments in the drear abodes of hell,
Where sad despair laments with rueful yell;
Such torments agonize the damned breast,
While fancy views the mansions of the blest.
For Heaven's sweet help their suppliant cries implore;
But Heaven, relentless, deigns to help no more!
And now, lashed on by destiny severe,
With horror fraught the dreadful scene drew near!
The ship hangs hovering on the verge of death,
Hell yawns, rocks rise, and breakers roar beneath!
In vain, alas! the sacred shades of yore,
Would arm the mind with philosophic lore;
In vain they'd teach us, at the latest breath,
To smile serene amid the pangs of death.
Even Zeno's self, and Epictetus old,
This fell abyss had shuddered to behold.
Had Socrates, for godlike virtue famed,
And wisest of the sons of men proclaimed,
Beheld this scene of frenzy and distress,
His soul had trembled to its last recess!
O yet confirm my heart, ye powers above,
This last tremendous shock of fate to prove!
The tottering frame of reason yet sustain !
Nor let this total ruin whirl my brain!

In vain the cords and axes were prepared,
For now the audacious seas insult the yard;
High o'er the ship they throw a horrid shade,
And o'er her burst, in terrible cascade.
Uplifted on the surge, to heaven she flies,
Her shattered top half buried in the skies,
Then headlong plunging thunders on the ground,
Earth groans, air trembles, and the deeps resound!
Her giant bulk the dread concussion feels,
And quivering with the wound, in torment reels;
So reels, convulsed with agonizing throes,
The bleeding bull beneath the murderer's blows.
Again she plunges; hark! a second shock
Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock!
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims shuddering roll their eyes
In wild despair; while yet another stroke,
With deep convulsion, rends the solid oak:
Till, like the mine, in whose infernal cell
The lurking demons of destruction dwell,
At length asunder torn her frame divides,
And crashing spreads in ruin o'er the tides.
O were it mine with tuneful Maro's art,
To wake to sympathy the feeling heart;

Like him the smooth and mournful verse to dress
In all the pomp of exquisite distress!
Then, too severely taught by cruel fate
To share in all the perils I relate,

Then might I with unrivalled strains deplore
The impervious horrors of a leeward shore.

As o'er the surf the bending mainmast hung,
Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung;
Some on a broken crag were struggling cast,
And there by oozy tangles grappled fast;
Awhile they bore the o'erwhelming billow's rage,
Unequal combat with their fate to wage;
Till all benumbed and feeble, they forego
Their slippery hold, and sink to shades below;

Some, from the main yard-arm impetuous thrown
On marble ridges, die without a groan;
Three with Palemon on their skill depend,
And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend;
Now on the mountain-wave on high they ride,
Then downward plunge beneath the involving tide;
Till one, who seems in agony to strive,
The whirling breakers heave on shore alive:
The rest a speedier end of anguish knew,
And pressed the stony beach-a lifeless crew!
Next, O unhappy chief! the eternal doom
Of heaven decreed thee to the briny tomb:
What scenes of misery torment thy view!
What painful struggles of thy dying crew!
Thy perished hopes all buried in the flood,
O'erspread with corses, red with human blood!
So pierced with anguish hoary Priam gazed,
When Troy's imperial domes in ruin blazed;
While he, severest sorrow doomed to feel,
Expired beneath the victor's murdering steel-
Thus with his helpless partners to the last,
Sad refuge! Albert grasps the floating mast.
His soul could yet sustain this mortal blow,
But droops, alas! beneath superior wo;
For now strong nature's sympathetic chain
Tugs at his yearning heart with powerful strain ;
His faithful wife, for ever doomed to mourn
For him, alas! who never shall return;

To black adversity's approach exposed,

With want, and hardships unforeseen enclosed;
His lovely daughter, left without a friend
Her innocence to succour and defend,
By youth and indigence set forth a prey
To lawless guilt, that flatters to betray-
While these reflections rack his feeling mind,
Rodmond, who hung beside, his grasp resigned,
And, as the tumbling waters o'er him rolled,
His outstretched arms the master's legs infold:
Sad Albert feels their dissolution near,
And strives in vain his fettered limbs to clear,
For death bids every clinching joint adhere.
All faint, to heaven he throws his dying eyes,
And 'Oh protect my wife and child!' he cries--
The gushing streams roll back the unfinished sound;
He gasps! and sinks amid the vast profound.

ROBERT LLOYD.

By

ROBERT LLOYD, the friend of Cowper and Churchill, was born in London in 1733. His father was under-master at Westminster school. He distinguished himself by his talents at Cambridge, but was irregular in his habits. After completing his education, he became an usher under his father. The wearisome routine of this life soon disgusted him, and he attempted to earn a subsistence by his literary talents. His poem called The Actor attracted some notice, and was the precursor of Churchill's 'Rosciad.' The style is light and easy, and the observations generally correct and spirited. contributing to periodical works as an essayist, a poet, and stage critic, Lloyd picked up a precarious subsistence, but his means were thoughtlessly squandered in company with Churchill and other wits 'upon town.' He brought out two indifferent theatrical pieces, published his poems by subscription, and edited the St James's Magazine,' to which Colman, Bonnel Thornton, and others, contributed. The magazine failed, and Lloyd was cast into prison for debt. Churchill generously allowed him a guinea a-week, as well as a servant; and endeavoured to raise a subscription for the purpose of extricating him from his embarrassments. Churchill died in November 1764. Lloyd,' says Mr Southey, "had been apprised of his danger; but when the news of

his death was somewhat abruptly announced to him, as he was sitting at dinner, he was seized with a sudden sickness, and saying, "I shall follow poor Charles," took to his bed, from which he never rose again; dying, if ever man died, of a broken heart. The tragedy did not end here: Churchill's favourite sister, who is said to have possessed much of her brother's sense, and spirit, and genius, and to have been betrothed to Lloyd, attended him during his illness; and, sinking under the double loss, soon followed her brother and her lover to the grave.' Lloyd, in conjunction with Colman, parodied the Odes of Gray and Mason, and the humour of their burlesques is not tinctured with malignity. Indeed, this unfortunate young poet seems to have been one of the gentlest of witty observers and lively satirists; he was ruined by the friendship of Churchill and the Nonsense Club, and not by the force of an evil nature. The vivacity of his style (which both Churchill and Cowper copied) may be seen from the following short extract on

[The Miseries of a Poet's Life.]

The harlot muse, so passing gay,
Bewitches only to betray.
Though for a while with easy air
She smooths the rugged brow of care,
And laps the mind in flowery dreams,
With Fancy's transitory gleams;
Fond of the nothings she bestows,
We wake at last to real woes.
Through every age, in every place,
Consider well the poet's case;
By turns protected and caressed,
Defamed, dependent, and distressed.
The joke of wits, the bane of slaves,
The curse of fools, the butt of knaves;
Too proud to stoop for servile ends,
To lacquey rogues or flatter friends;
With prodigality to give,

Too careless of the means to live;
The bubble fame intent to gain,
And yet too lazy to maintain;
He quits the world he never prized,
Pitied by few, by more despised,
And, lost to friends, oppressed by foes,
Sinks to the nothing whence he rose.

O glorious trade! for wit's a trade,
Where men are ruined more than made!
Let crazy Lee, neglected Gay,
The shabby Otway, Dryden gray,
Those tuneful servants of the Nine,
(Not that I blend their names with mine),
Repeat their lives, their works, their fame.
And teach the world some useful shame.

But bad as the life of a hackney poet and critic seems to have been in Lloyd's estimation, the situation of a school-usher was as little to his mind :

[Wretchedness of a School-Usher.] Were I at once empowered to show My utmost vengeance on my foe, To punish with extremest rigour, I could inflict no penance bigger, Than, using him as learning's tool, To make him usher of a school. For, not to dwell upon the toil Of working on a barren soil, And labouring with incessant pains, To cultivate a blockhead's brains, The duties there but ill befit The love of letters, arts, or wit.

For one, it hurts me to the soul, To brook confinement or control; Still to be pinioned down to teach The syntax and the parts of speech; Or, what perhaps is drudgery worse, The links, and points, and rules of verse; To deal out authors by retail, Like penny pots of Oxford ale; Oh 'tis a service irksome more, Than tugging at the slavish oar! Yet such his task, a dismal truth, Who watches o'er the bent of youth, And while a paltry stipend earning, He sows the richest seeds of learning, And tills their minds with proper care, And sees them their due produce bear; No joys, alas! his toil beguile, His own lies fallow all the while. 'Yet still he's on the road,' you say, 'Of learning.' Why, perhaps he may, But turns like horses in a mill, Nor getting on, nor standing still; For little way his learning reaches,

Who reads no more than what he teaches.

CHARLES CHURCHILL.

A second Dryden was supposed to have arisen in Churchill, when he published his satirical poem, The Rosciad, in 1761. The impression was continued by his reply to the critical reviewers, shortly afterwards; and his Epistle to Hogarth, The Prophecy of Famine, Night, and passages in his other poemsall thrown off in haste to serve the purpose of the day-evinced great facility of versification, and a breadth and boldness of personal invective that drew instant attention to their author. Though Cowper, from early predilections, had a high opinion of Churchill, and thought he was indeed a poet,' we cannot now consider the author of the Rosciad' as more than a special pleader or pamphleteer in verse. He seldom reaches the heart-except in some few lines of penitential fervour-and he never ascended to the higher regions of imagination, then trod by Collins, Gray, and Akenside. With the beauties of external nature he had not the slightest sympathy. He died before he had well attained the prime of life; yet there is no youthful enthusiasm about his works, nor any indications that he sighed for a higher fame than that of being the terror of actors and artists, noted for his libertine eccentricities, and distinguished for his devotion to Wilkes. That he misapplied strong original talents in following out these pitiful or unworthy objects of his ambition, is undeniable; but as a satirical poet-the only character in which he appears as an author-he is immeasurably inferior to Pope or Dryden. The 'fatal facility' of his verse, and his unscrupulous satire of living individuals and passing events, had, however, the effect of making all London ring from side to side' with his applause, at a time when the real poetry of the age could hardly obtain either publishers or readers. Excepting Marlow, the dramatic poet, scarcely any English author of reputation has been more unhappy in his life and end than Charles Churchill. He was the son of a clergyman in Westminster, where he was born in 1741. After attending Westminster school and Trinity college, Cambridge (which he quitted abruptly), he made a clandestine marriage with a young lady in Westminster, and was assisted by his father, till he was ordained and settled in the curacy of Rainham, in Essex. His father died in 1758, and the poet was appointed his successor in the curacy and lectureship of St John's at Westminster. This transition, which pro

mised an accession of comfort and respectability, proved the bane of poor Churchill. He was in his twenty-seventh year, and his conduct had been up to this period irreproachable. He now, however, renewed his intimacy with Lloyd and other school companions, and launched into a career of dissipation and extravagance. His poetry drew him into notice; and he not only disregarded his lectureship, but he laid aside the clerical costume, and appeared in the extreme of fashion, with a blue coat, goldlaced hat, and ruffles. The dean of Westminster remonstrated with him against this breach of clerical propriety, and his animadversions were seconded by the poet's parishioners. Churchill affected to ridicule this prudery, and Lloyd made it the subject of an epigram :

To Churchill, the bard, cries the Westminster dean, Leather breeches, white stockings! pray what do you mean?

'Tis shameful, irreverent-you must keep to church rules.

If wise ones I will; and if not they're for fools. If reason don't bind me, I'll shake off all fetters, To be black and all black I shall leave to my betters. The dean and the congregation were, however, too powerful, and Churchill found it necessary to resign the lectureship. His ready pen still threw off at will his popular satires, and he plunged into the grossest debaucheries. These excesses he attempted to justify in a poetical epistle to Lloyd, entitled 'Night,' in which he revenges himself on prudence and the world by railing at them in good set terms. "This vindication proceeded,' says his biographer, ' on the exploded doctrine, that the barefaced avowal of vice is less culpable than the practice of it under a hypocritical assumption of virtue. The measure of guilt in the individual is, we conceive, tolerably equal; but the sanction and dangerous example afforded in the former case, renders it, in a public point of view, an evil of tenfold magnitude. The poet's irregularities affected his powers of composition, and his poem of The Ghost, published at this time, was an incoherent and tiresome production. A greater evil, too, was his acquaintance with Wilkes, unfortunately equally conspicuous for public faction and private debauchery. Churchill assisted his new associate in the North Briton, and received the profit arising from its sale. This circumstance rendered him of importance enough to be included with Wilkes in the list of those whom the messengers had verbal instructions to apprehend under the general warrant issued for that purpose, the execution of which gave rise to the most popular and only beneficial part of the warm contest that ensued with government. Churchill was with Wilkes at the time the latter was apprehended, and himself only escaped owing to the messenger's ignorance of his person, and to the presence of mind with which Wilkes addressed him by the name of Thomson.' The poet now set about his satire, the Prophecy of Famine, which, like Wilkes's North Briton, was specially directed against the Scottish nation. The outlawry of Wilkes separated the friends, but they kept up a correspondence, and Churchill continued

* Life of Churchill prefixed to works. London: 1804. When

Churchill entered the room, Wilkes was in custody of the messenger. Good morning, Mr Thomson,' said Wilkes to him. How does Mrs Thomson do? Does she dine in the country? Churchill took the hint as readily as it had been given. He replied that Mrs Thomson was waiting for him, and that he only came, for a moment, to ask him how he did. Then almost directly he took his leave, hastened home, secured his papers, retired into the country, and eluded all search.

to be a keen political satirist. The excesses of his daily life remained equally conspicuous. Hogarth, who was opposed to Churchill for being a friend of Wilkes, characteristically exposed his habits by caricaturing the satirist in the form of a bear dressed canonically, with ruffles at his paws, and holding a pot of porter. Churchill took revenge in a fierce and sweeping 'epistle' to Hogarth, which is said to have caused him the most exquisite pain. After separating from his wife, and forming an unhappy connexion with another female, the daughter of a Westminster tradesman, whom he had seduced, Churchill's career drew to a sad and premature close. In October 1764 he went to France to pay a visit to his friend Wilkes, and was seized at Boulogne with a fever, which proved fatal on the 4th of November. With his clerical profession Churchill had thrown off his belief in Christianity, and Mr Southey mentions, that though he made his will only the day before his death, there is in it not the slightest expression of religious faith or hope. So highly popular and productive had his satires proved, that he was enabled to bequeath an annuity of sixty pounds to his widow, and fifty to the more unhappy woman whom he had seduced, and some at Dover, and some of his gay associates placed over surplus remained to his sons. The poet was buried his grave a stone on which was engraved a line from

one of his own poems

Life to the last enjoyed, here Churchill lies. The enjoyment may be doubted, hardly less than the taste of the inscription. It is certain that Churchill expressed his compunction for parts of his conduct, in verses that evidently came from the heart :

Look back! a thought which borders on despair,
Which human nature must, yet cannot bear.
'Tis not the babbling of a busy world,
Where praise or censure are at random hurled,
Which can the meanest of my thoughts control,
Or shake one settled purpose of my soul;
Free and at large might their wild curses roam,
No; 'tis the tale, which angry conscience tells,
If all, if all, alas! were well at home.
When she with more than tragic horror swells
Each circumstance of guilt; when stern, but true,
She brings bad actions forth into review,
And, like the dread handwriting on the wall,
Armed at all points, bids scorpion vengeance pass,
Bids late remorse awake at reason's call;
And to the mind holds up reflection's glass
The mind which starting heaves the heart-felt groan,
And hates that form she knows to be her own.

The Conference.

The most ludicrous, and, on the whole, the best of Churchill's satires, is his Prophecy of Famine, a Scots pastoral, inscribed to Wilkes. The Earl of Bute's administration had directed the enmity of all disappointed patriots and keen partisans against the Scottish nation. Even Johnson and Junius descended to this petty national prejudice, and Churchill revelled in it with such undisguised exaggeration and broad humour, that the most saturnine or sensitive of our countrymen must have laughed at its absurdity. This unique pastoral opens as follows:Two boys whose birth, beyond all question, springs From great and glorious, though forgotten kings, Shepherds of Scottish lineage, born and bred On the same bleak and barren mountain's head, By niggard nature doomed on the same rocks To spin out life, and starve themselves and flocks, Fresh as the morning, which, enrobed in mist, The mountain's top with usual dulness kissed,

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