Conflans, I was still more transported. But nothing could express my rapture when Wolfe made the conquest of Quebec." No intimacy, however, appears to have subsisted between Cowper and Churchill, notwithstanding these points of sympathy, and their acquaintance at school, though they were of the same standing there. Churchill was not a member of the Nonsense Club; and when he threw himself upon the town he connected himself with associates of a much worse description than his old schoolfellows. He clung to Lloyd indeed, and Lloyd to him. Thornton and Colman made common cause with them as men of letters; but though not remarkable for prudence themselves, they were discreet enough not to join in their orgies, and were by no means inclined to form any intimate connexion with Wilkes after he had declared war against the government. Wilkes, moreover, thought ill of Thornton; his own vices were so open and notorious, that no room was left for any one to think worse of him than he had proclaimed himself to be: but ill opinion implies dislike; and dislikes are generally mutual. And Colman was as much attached to Thornton, as Churchill to Wilkes, and as Lloyd to Churchill. The same reasons, probably, withheld Cowper from forming an intimacy with Churchill, sincerely as he admired his talents. His constitution could not have withstood the excesses which Churchill braved in the strength of a robust frame, and boasted of with the audacity of a mind little less vain than it was vigorous. Cowper's head could have borne wine as well"; but his health required him to keep regular hours, and his disposition inclined him to a quiet life. His finer nature would have revolted from Churchill's coarseness; and if he could have endured the conversation of Wilkes in society where Wilkes was under no restraint,.. (which is not to be supposed), it would have been ruinous for him, with the prospects which 17 Speaking of a recent illness to Mr. Newton (Sept. 8, 1783), he says, "I was in no degree delirious, nor has any thing less than a fever really dangerous ever made me so. In this respect, if in no other, I may be said to have a strong head; and perhaps for the same reason, that wine would never make me drunk, an ordinary degree of fever has no effect upon my understanding." he then entertained, to have brought upon himself the imputation of being a Wilkite. 18 It was by the acrimony and personality of his satire that Churchill made his fortune as a poet. When he passed from players to politicians,.. from the theatre to the great stage of public life,.. his subjects were inexhaustible. The poem which contains most of his better mind was the least personal of all his productions, and for that reason it had the least sale. The fault was never repeated. He made hay while the sun shone, writing as fast as the impulse moved him, and publishing as fast as he wrote. No man knew better that though the capability of becoming a poet is the gift of nature, the art of poetry requires no ordinary pains: but he submitted to none himself. Blotting and correcting were his abhorrence; he said it was "like cutting away one's own flesh." The energetic expression was remembered by his publisher, and by him repeated to Mr. D'Israeli; who heard (probably from the same authentic source)" that after a successful work he usually precipitated the publication of another, relying on its crudeness being passed over by the public curiosity which was excited by its better brother. He called this getting double pay. But Churchill," says Mr. D'Israeli, "was spendthrift of fame, and enjoyed all his revenue while he lived. Posterity owes him little, and pays him nothing 19." His satires, indeed, would have slept, perhaps, with their heroes, if they had not been luckily included in Bell's edition of the British Poets,.. the first general collection, which, though made with little judgement and less knowledge, has 18 Gotham. Cowper admired this poem greatly. Speaking of one of Churchill's biographers, "a pitiful scribbler, who seems to have undertaken that task for which he was entirely unqualified, because it afforded him an opportunity to traduce him," and who had called this piece a catchpenny, he says, "Gotham, unless I am a greater blockhead than he, which I am far from believing, is a noble and beautiful poem, and a poem with which, I make no doubt, the author took as much pains as with any he ever wrote. Making allowance (and Dryden, perhaps, in his Absalom and Achitophel, stands in need of the same indulgence) for an unwarrantable use of Scripture, it appears to me to be a masterly performance."-To Mr. Unwin (no date). The life here spoken of is in Bell's Collection of the British Poets, the first in which Churchill was included. 19 Curiosities of Literature, vol. iii. p. 129, edit. 1833. been followed in this respect by subsequent collections, Johnson's only excepted: but in the supplement to Johnson's, Churchill was included, and is now considered as a regular member of the corporation of poets. To this rank he is fairly entitled. And though it might seem that his poems, for their subjects'-sake, might properly be relegated among those which formerly used from time to time to be collected under the title of State-Poems, they are too good for this. Manly sense is their characteristic, deriving strength of expression from indignation; and they contain redeeming passages of sound morality and permanent truth. No such ingredients enter into the old collections; there, indeed, much occasional vigour is to be found, and wit in abundance; but to characterize them generally as libellous and malignant would be to employ weak and inadequate words; they are receptacles of ordure and venom. Such collections must be consulted by those who would thoroughly understand the history and the spirit of the times to which they belong: Churchill also will have some readers of that class; but he will have more among the students of English poetry and of English literature. While Churchill, having honourably discharged his debts, was making a provision for his family from the produce of his rapid pen; Lloyd, whose facility in composition was equal, who stood high in reputation, whose talents were of no common order, and whose industry never shrunk from its daily task, was sinking lower and lower as a literary drudge. After conducting the poetical department of a periodical publication, entitled the Library, and publishing a quarto volume of poems, for which he obtained a considerable number of subscribers, he engaged to edit the St. James's Magazine, the first number of which appeared in September, 1762, with his name on the cover; on this it seems the publisher insisted; and Lloyd, if he did not feel the cogency of his arguments, felt that of his authority. Both counted upon the aid of Lloyd's literary friends. 20 BOOKSELLER. a name will always bring And all your scribbling foes are such If you don't print it, sir, they will. S. C.-1. F BOOKSELLER. You'll have assistance, and the best. There's Churchill,-will not Churchill lend Assistance? AUTHOR. Surely, to his FRIEND. BOOKSELLER. And then your interest might procure AUTHOR. True, I've indulged such hopes before, Bold is the task we undertake : The friends we wish, the work must make; To cling to that which stands alone. If Lloyd was disappointed in the hopes of assistance which he thus publicly advertised, it was because they could not possibly be realized to the desired extent. He received more than might have been expected. Some contributions seem to have come from Colman; considerable ones, certainly, from Thornton; none from Churchill, who had no time to spare, but who assisted him more effectually in another way. The chief contributor was Charles Denis, to whom the first volume was dedicated, "in acknowledgment of favours received." Denis was an imitator of Lafontaine; and upon this writer and Hall Stevenson, Dr. Wolcott, popularly known in the last generation as Peter Pindar, formed his style. Wolcott had more wit and more originality; but as indecency of one kind was not marketable in his days among the general public, he seasoned his pieces with another, and directed his personal ridicule AUTHOR. Well, be it so. That struggle's o'er: I've writ my name, and made a blot. The Puff: Introductory Dial. against individuals whose character or station was such that he was in no danger of receiving personal chastisement. One communication to the St. James's Magazine" may be ascribed to Cowper; it is a Dissertation on the Modern Öde, signed with his initials. "A perfect Ode," composed upon the ironical directions therein given, is promised by the writer; and such an ode appeared in a subsequent number, evidently by the same person, though signed with a different initial. No earlier communication of his can be traced there; and there is none later, because when the ode appeared the crisis of his fate was at hand. 23 The task of supplying a monthly magazine by his own exertions, with only eleemosynary assistance, was too much for Lloyd, even with all his power of application and facility in composition. The publisher brought to his aid, in the first number, an easy resource, on which probably both had relied. "Though the author," he said, "had in his preliminary poem disclaimed any assistance but the Belles Lettres, and chiefly depended upon the Muses, who are not always in a humour to be propitious to their suitors, it was presumed that it could be neither unacceptable to him, nor disagreeable to the reader, to vary the entertainment, and to give the most material occurrences of the month, both foreign and domestic." But this was so ill received, that it was immediately discontinued. Bonnell Thornton then came kindly to his aid. "Old friend"," said he, "give me leave to congratulate your readers on the improvement which you made in your last Magazine, in not retailing stale paragraphs of news, but supplying their places with original matter; though by so doing you imposed upon yourself a further task of providing materials for another half sheet. I am sensible of the difficulty you must naturally be under in being obliged to furnish such a quantity of copy for the printer every month; it is therefore incumbent on your friends and well-wishers to ease you in some measure of the burthen. One part of your plan, indeed, is admirably calculated for this purpose, and might prove a great saving to you, 21 Vol. ii. April, 1763. pp. 118-125. 22 Vol. iii. Nov. 1763, pp. 187-9. It is signed L., but L. is evidently the same person as W. C. and I have therefore inserted the Ode among the additional notes to this volume. 23 The Puff. 24 Vol. i. Nov. 1762, p. 188. |