Would you thus cruelly those scenes unfold
Which, without pain and horror, to behold,
Must speak me something more, or less than man;
Which friends may pardon, but I never can ?
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 and censure are at random hurl'd,
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,
If All, if All, alas! were well at home.
No! 'tis the tale which angry Conscience tells,
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,
Bids late Remorse awake at Reason's call,
Arm'd at all points, bids Scorpion Vengeance pass,
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.
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. "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 fragments of Roman genius, Magnificent in ruin!" But not yet was he quite

AN INCIDENT OF THE STREET.

85

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 where such high claims exist, has indeed 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 enter 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 has depicted Charles Churchill in Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea.

Whilst he was one night "staggering" home, as he says, 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 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 late an hour. Her surprise and joy at such 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

SERVICES TO LLOYD.

87

better lodging, and provided for their future comfort; when, repressing as he could their prayers and 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 General Warrants case, 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 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; 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, it 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, which will richly vindicate its title to have escaped the comparative oblivion into which it has most undeservedly fallen. The first (of which the opening lines may recall the happy turas 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;