CHURCH CHURCHILL. 



231 



breeding of cattle and sheep is more carefully attend- 

 ed to. Manufactures are limited to Rome, Bologna, 

 Ancona, and Norcia. In 1824, 3630 vessels entered 

 the five ports, Rome, Civita Vecchia, Ancio, Ter- 

 racino, and Ancona, of which 1052 belonged to the 

 papal, and 2267 to the other Italian States. The 

 t'air of Sinigaglia is much frequented. 



CHURCH, BENJAMIN, who distinguished himself 

 in the Indian wars of New England, was born at 

 Duxbury, Massachusetts, in 1639. He was one of 

 the most active and indefatigable opponents of the 

 Indian king Philip, and was once very near losing 

 his life, while in pursuit of him. He commanded the 

 party which killed Philip, in August, 1676. In 1704, 

 the spirit of the old warrior was roused by the burn- 

 ing of Deerfield, and he immediately rode 70 miles 

 on horseback, to tender his services to governor Dud- 

 ley. The offer being accepted, he undertook an ex- 

 pedition against the eastern shore of New England, 

 and inflicted considerable injury upon the French and 

 Indians. The rupture of a blood-vessel, occasioned 

 by a fall from his horse, put an end to his life, Jan. 

 17, 1718, in the 78th year of his age. He published 

 a narrative of king Philip's war, J716; and left a 

 character of great integrity and piety. 



CHURCHILL, CHARLES, a poet and satirist of 

 great temporary fame, was the son of the curate of St 

 John's, Westminster, in which parish he was born, 

 in 1731. He was educated at Westminster school, 

 but made so bad a use of his time, that he was refused 

 admission at the university of Oxford, from his want 

 of classical knowledge. He accordingly returned to 

 school, but soon closed his education by an imprudent 

 marriage with a young lady in the neighbourhood. 

 He, however, studied in private, and was at length 

 admitted into holy orders by the bishop of London, 

 and received a Welsh curacy of 30 a year. In order 

 to increase this scanty income, he engaged in the sale 

 of cider, but, being little adapted for trade, soon be- 

 came insolvent. Returning to London, on the death 

 of his father, he obtained his curacy ; but, owing to 

 the smallness of his income, and, most likely, to his 

 fondness for theatrical amusements and the company 

 of the wits of the day, he was soon overwhelmed with 

 debt. A composition with his creditors being effect- 

 ed by the humane mediation of doctor Lloyd, the se- 

 cond master of Westminster school, he began to think 

 of seriously exerting the talents which he was con- 

 scious that he possessed. Under the title of the 

 Rosciad, a poem, published first in March, 1761, with- 

 out a name, he examined the excellences and defects 

 of the actors in the two houses in London, with equal 

 spirit, judgment and vivacity. The language and 

 versification too, although sometimes careless and un- 

 equal, were far superior to the ordinary strain of cur- 

 rent poetry in strength and energy, and the entire 

 production bore the stamp of no common talents. 

 The celebrity of this poem was very great, and the 

 players very weakly increased it by the impatience 

 with which they resented its censures. Pamphlets 

 abounded on both sides of the question ; and the 

 author justified himself in a new satire, entitled the 

 Apology, in which the profession of a player was 

 treated with humorous contempt. These works made 

 him many enemies, for which he cared very little, as 

 they brought him the far more dangerous intimacy 

 and applause of the men of wit and pleasure about the 

 town. A course of dissipation and intemperance 

 followed, which excited much animadversion, and 

 elicited from him his next satire, entitled Night. The 

 Cock-lane imposture, also, formed a topic for his 

 muse, and he hesitated not to satirize doctor Johnson, 

 in the piece entitled the Ghost. He next fell in with 

 the national ill humour against the Scots, which ori- 

 ginated in the political occurrences of the commence- 



ment of the reign of George III. by his Prophecy oj 

 Famine, a Scottish pastoral, being a most acrimonious, 

 yet strongly-drawn caricature of Scottish disadvan- 

 tages. 1'his poem was received with great avidity, 

 and he immediately took that rank as a political sa- 

 tirist, which he long maintained, at the expense ol 

 candour and decorum, and to the deterioration of both 

 his poetical and moral character. Of the latter, in- 

 deed, he now became utterly careless ; and, dropping 

 the clerical habit, he parted from his wife, and even 

 distinguished himself in the fashionable art of seduc- 

 tion. Being now a party writer by profession, he 

 cultivated an acquaintance with Mr Wilkes, and em- 

 ployed his pen assiduously in the cause of opposition, 

 and for his own emolument. Besides the works al- 

 ready mentioned, he published, within three or four 

 years, an Epistle to Hogarth, the Conference, the 

 Duellist, the Author, Gotham, the Candidate, the 

 Times, Independence, and the Journey. Most of 

 these pieces contain detached pictures, which display 

 a vigorous fancy and forcible sentiments, expressed 

 with great occasional energy. In versification, Church- 

 ill avowedly imitated Dryden ; and when he writes 

 with care, he well exemplifies his appreciation of his 

 model ; but he wrote too hastily, not to injure his 

 composition by prosaic lines, and he frequently pass- 

 ed off his carelessness for design. Towards the end 

 of the year 1764, he was seized with a fever, and died 

 on the 4th of November, the same year, at the age of 

 thirty-four. 



The following sportive, yet just and vigorous estimate 

 of Churchill, we extract from Blackwood's magazine 

 for June, 1828. " Churchill was a poor, low, un- 

 principled, vicious, coarse creature, with smartness that 

 sometimes was almost strength ; and what to us must 

 in such a person always be a mystery, he had a com- 

 mand over the English language, as far as his mind en- 

 abled him to get in it, which made everything he said 

 tell, far beyond its native worth or 'power, and has se- 

 cured him no contemptible place among English satir- 

 ists. His style certainly is pure and idiomatic. He was 

 the terror of pimps and players, and his ghost probably 

 haunted Garrick, although it was hardly worth its 

 while to come up for such a purpose. Let a thing be 

 but well executed, poor, paltry, and pitiful, as in its 

 own nature it may be, and it lasts. It is so with 

 the Rosciad. The splendour of that farthing candle 

 burned bright during Garrick's life, not only illumi- 

 nating the green-room, but all London, all England ; 

 long after his decease, it continued to glimmer away 

 very respectably ; and we have heard elderly gentle- 

 men within these twenty years, (one of them lived in 

 Ludlow,) belonging to the school whose day was just 

 wearing out, quote the Rosciad by screeds ; lines in 

 it are still recognized when they meet the ear or the 

 eye ; and possibly the entire affair may never be, from 

 beginning to end, utterly forgotten as long as there 

 are theatres. 



" That Davies has a very pretty wife," 

 was reckoned one of the severest and happiest lines 

 ever written, and " ex unodisce omnes." Oh dear ! 

 but a little wit goes a long way in this stupid world. 

 Then Churchill had much rancour, and a large spleen, 

 which is always in an inverse ratio to the size of the 

 heart. This gave him spirit for a spurt. But he had 

 no bottom. He was also a coward ; and, like a cow- 

 ard, liked to frighten the feeble into fits of fear. Had 

 Hogarth, instead of caricaturing him badly, floored 

 him by a right-handed facer, or lunge in the kidneys, 

 John Bee is our authority for saying that Hogarth 

 could spar a bit, Churchill had been cowed, and bit 

 his nail and pen in insolent malice. Why Dr John 

 son, whom he libelled as Pomposo, did not break his 

 bones, we cannot conjecture ; perhaps because the 

 scamp was a parson : and Samuel had such a respect 



