'Tis a rank falsehood; search the world around CHARLES CHURCHILL was born in 1731, in Vine-street, in the parish of St. John's, Westminster, the parish of which his father was curate and lecturer. He was educated at Westminster School, and gave early tokens of that genius, and, unhappily, also of that irregularity, by which his subsequent career was so remarkably distinguished. He married at the age of seventeen; entered into holy orders, the want of a degree having been dispensed with, and was appointed to a small curacy in Somersetshire. In 1758, his good father died; and, as a mark of respect for his memory, the parishioners appointed his son to succeed him. At this period, his character and habits were in keeping with his sacred profession; he laboured to increase his income by giving lessons in the classics; attended with punctuality to his parochial duties; and, in the pulpit, it is said, was "plain, rational, and emphatic." It is certain, however, that his "good intentions" were not long retained; but that he eagerly desired to find a more ready path to celebrity than the church held out to him. Pecuniary embarrassments too surrounded him; and while he looked to achieve fame, he also fancied he might obtain fortune. In 1760, his friend and school-fellow Lloyd, published with success his poem of "The Actor;" Churchill, whose poetical talent had until then lain dormant, took the hint, and a few months afterwards "The Rosciad," the most famous of all his works, made its appearance. The object he desired was accomplished; he bounded at once from obscurity to distinction; and-as the booksellers had refused to purchase his manuscript for five guineas, and it was consequently printed at his own cost-money came with reputation. He immediately threw off the "inconvenient restraints" of his order; and that the world might see how much he despised them, appeared in public with a blue coat, a gold-laced waistcoat, a laced hat, and ruffles; "got drunk, frequented stews, and, giddy with false praise, thought his talents a sufficient atonement for all his follies." The result was, of course, a formal complaint on the part of his parishioners, and a resignation of his cure. During the four years that followed, his poems were sent forth with amazing rapidity; the Apology to the Critical Reviewers, Night, the Prophecy of Famine, the Epistle to Hogarth, the Ghost, the Conference, the Duellist, the Author, Gotham, the Candidate, the Farewell, the Times, Independence, and the Journey-followed in quick succession. In the year 1764, during a visit to his friend Wilkes, at Boulogne, he died, in the thirty-third year of his age, and was buried at Dover; the grave-stone which records his death gives endurance to a falsehood:- "Life to the last enjoy'd-here Churchill lies." The dissipated career of Churchill could not have been a happy one; the last words he uttered-" What a fool I have been!"-supply the best comment on his epitaph. Churchill"blazed the comet of a season;" he is now forgotten; or remembered rather as one to be shunned for his evil example, than admired for the brilliancy of his genius, and the dazzling glory of his course. It is by no means surprising that nearly all which is now known of him is his name. "He was," says M. D'Israeli, "a spendthrift of fame, and enjoyed all his revenue while he lived. Posterity owes him little, and pays him nothing." He wrote only for his own age-all his composi tions are satires-satires not general, but personal; and, as few of his heroes have made mankind their debtors, they have long since ceased to interest us either for praise or blame. Passages of manly sense and sound morality may, indeed, be selected from his poems; but almost invariably his muse was stimulated either by private pique or party prejudice. He was incapable of taking any enlarged view of an object, or of considering it beyond the limited circle to which his own interests confined him; and when he stood forth as a public censor, his own character was known to be most liable to censure, and his own conduct most needing the lash. He seems to have been conscious that he was not writing for immortality; his compositions were flung from him crude and unfinished, as if he considered them but as so many necessary acknowledgments for the tax of half-a-crown, which it was his custom to levy for each of them. The exaggerated praise he received not only corrupted his morals, but impaired his mind; and, probably, if he had lived a few years longer, he would 'Tis a rank falsehood; search the world around Might this be true, had we so far fill'd up None but the damn'd, and amongst them the worst, At once into such deep damnation fall; By painful slow degrees they reach this crime, FROM THE ROSCIAD. [The character of Fribble was intended for Mr. Fitzpatrick, a person who had rendered himself remarkable by his activity in the playhouse riots of 1763, relative to the taking half prices. He was the hero of Garrick's Fribbleríad,] WITH that low cunning, which in fools supplies, And amply, too, the place of being wise, Which Nature, kind indulgent parent, gave To qualify the blockhead for a knave; With that smooth falsehood, whose appearance charms, A motley figure, of the Fribble tribe, Which heart can scarce conceive, or pen describe, Much did it talk, in its own pretty phrase, * In the first seat, in robe of various dyes, |