******

NIGHT

(By Charles Churchill) Notes and comments follow. When foes insult, and prudent friends dispense,
In pity's strains, the worst of insolence,
Off with thee, Lloyd(a), I steal an hour from grief,
And in thy social converse find relief.
The mind, of solitude impatient grown,
Loves any sorrows rather than her own.

Let slaves do bus'ness, bodies without soul,
Important blanks in Nature's(b) mighty roll,
Solemnize nonsense in the day's broad glare,
We Night prefer, which heals or hides our care.
Rouges justified, and by success made bold,
Dull fools and coxcombs sanctified by gold,

Freely may bask in fortune's partial ray,
And spread their feathers op'ning to the day;
But threadbare Merit dares not shew the head
Till vain Prosperity retires to bed.
Misfortunes, like the owl, avoid the light;
The sons of Care are always sons of Night.(Line 18)

The wretch bred up in method's drowsy school,
Whose only merit is to err by rule,
Who ne'er through heat of blood was tripping caught,
Nor guilty deem'd of one eccentric thought;
Whose soul directed to no use is seen,
Unless to move the body's dull machine.

Which, clock-work like, with the same equal pace,
Still travels on through life's insipid space,
Turns up his eyes to think that there should be,
Among God's creature, two such things as we;
Then for his nightcap calls, and thanks the pow'rs
Which kindly gave him grace to keep good hours.

Good hours - fine words - but was it ever seen
That all men could agree in what they mean?
Florio (c), who many years a course hath run
In downright opposition to the sun,
Expatiates on good hours, their cause defends
With as much vigour as our prudent friends.

Th' uncertain term no settled notion brings,
But still in diff'rent mouths means diff'rent things;
Each takes the phrase in his own private view;
With Prudence it is ten, with Florio two.
Go on, ye Fools, who talk for talking sake,
Without distinguishing, distinctions make;

Shine forth in native folly, native pride,
Make yourselves rules to all the world beside;
Reason, collected in herself, disdains
The slavish yoke of arbitrary chains;
Steady and true, each circumstance she weighs,
Nor to bare words inglorious tribute pays.

Men of sense live exempt from vulgar awe,
And Reason to herself alone is law:
That freedom she enjoys with lib'ral mind,
Which she as freely grants to all mankind.
No idol-titled name her rev'rence stirs,
No hour she blindly to the rest prefers;

All are alike, if they're alike employ'd,
And all are good if virtuously enjoy'd.
Let the sage Doctor (d) think him one we know
With scraps of ancient learning overflow,
In all the dignity of wig declare
the fatal consequence of midnight air,

How damps and vapours, as it were by stealth,
Undermine life, and sap the walls of health:
For me let Galen (e) moulder on the shelf,
I'll live, and be physician to myself.
Whilst soul is join'd to body, whether fate
Allot a longer or a shorter date,

I'll make them live, as brother should with brother,
And keep them in good humour with each other.
The surest road to health, say what they will,
Is never to suppose we shall be ill.
Most of those evils we pour mortals know,
From doctors and imagination flow.

Hence to old women with your boasted rules,
Stale traps, and only sacred now to fools;
As well may sons of physic hope to find
One med'cine, as one hour, for all mankind.
If Rupert (f) after ten is out of bed,
The fool next morning can't hold up his head;

What reason this which me to bed must call,
Whose head, thank Heaven, never aches at all?
In diff'rent courses diff'rent tempers run;
He hates the moon, I sicken at the sun.
Wound up at twelve at noon, his clock goes right,
Mine better goes, would up at twelve at night.

Then in oblivion's grateful cup I drown
The galling sneer, the supercilious frown,
The strange reserve, the proud affected state
Of upstart knaves grown rich, and fools grown great.
No more that abject wretch disturbs my rest,
Who meanly overlooks a friend distrest.

Purblind(g) to poverty the worlding goes,
And scarce sees rags an inch beyond his nose,
But from a crowd can single out his grace,
And cringe and creep to fools who strut in lace.
Whether those classic regions are survey'd
Where we in earliest youth together stray'd.

Where hand in hand we trod the flow'ry shore,
Though now thy happier genius runs before,
When we conspir'd a thankless wretch to raise, (Line 99)
And taught a stump to shoot with pilfer?d praise,
Who once for rev'rend merit famous grown,
Gratefully strove to kick his maker down;

Or if more gen'ral arguments engage,
The court or camp, the pulpit, bar, or stage;
If half-bred surgeons, whom men Doctors call,
And lawyers, who were never bred at all,
Those mighty letter'd monsters of the earth,
Our pity move, or exercise our mirth;

Or if in tittle-tattle, tooth-pick way,
Our rambling thoughts with easy freedom stray,
A gainer still thy friend himself must find,
His grief suspended, and improv'd his mind.
Whilst peaceful slumbers bless the homely bed
Where virtue, self-approv'd, reclines her head,

Whilst vice beneath imagin'd horrors mourns,
And conscience plants the villain's couch with thorns,
Impatient of restraint, the active mind,
No more by servile prejudice confin'd,
Leaps from her seat, as waken'd from a trance,
And darts through Nature at a single glance;

Then we our friends, our foes, ourselves, survey,
And see by Night what fools we are by day.
Stripp'd of her gaudy plumes and vain disguise,
See where ambition mean and loathsome lies;
Reflection with relentless hand pulls down
The tyrant's bloody wreath and ravish'd crown.

In vain he tells of battles bravely won,
Of nations conquer'd, and of worlds undone;
Triumphs like these but ill with manhood suit,
And sink the conqueror beneath the brute.
But if, in searching round the world, we find
Some gen'rous youth, the friend of all mankind,

Whose anger, like the bolt of Jove(h) is sped
In terrors only at the guilty head,
Whose mercies, like heav'n's dew, refreshing fall
In gen'ral love and charity to all,
Pleas'd we behold such worth on any throne,
And doubly pleas'd we find it on our own.

Though a false medium things are shewn by day;
Pomp, wealth, and titles, judgment lead astray.
How many from appearance borrow state,
Whom Night disdains to number with the great!
Must not we laugh to see yon? lording proud
Snuff up vile incense from a fawning crowd?

Whilst in his beam surrounding clients play,
Like insects in the sun's enliv'ning ray,
Whilst, Jehu (i) like, he drives at furious rate,
And seems the only charioteer of state,
Talking himself into a little god,
And ruling empires with a single nod;

Who would not think, to hear him law dispense,
That he had int'rest, and that they had sense?
Injurious thought! Beneath Night's honest shade,
When pomp is buried, and false colours fade
Plainly we see, at that impartial hour,
Them dupes to pride, and him the tool of pow'r.

God help the man, condemn'd by cruel fate
To court the seeming, or the real great!
Much sorrow shall he feel, and suffer more
Than any slave who labours at the oar:
By slavish methods must he learn to please,
But, smooth-tongu'd flatt'ry, that curs'd court disease.

Supple to ev'ry wayward mood strike sail,
And shift with shifting humour's peevish gale.
To Nature dead he must adopt vile art,
And wear a smile, with anguish in his heart.
A sense of honour would destroy his schemes,
And Conscience ne'er must speak unless in dreams.

When he hath tamely borne, for many years,
Cold looks, forbidding frowns, contemptuous sneers,
When he at last expects, good easy man!
To reap the profits of his labour'd plan,
Some cringing lackey, or capacious whore,
to favours of the great the surest door,

Some catamite (j), or pimp, in credit grown,
Who tempts another's wife, or sells his own,
Steps cross his hopes, the promis'd boon denies,
And for some minion's minion claims the prize.
Foe to restraint, unpractis'd in deceit,
Too resolute, from nature's active heat

To brook affronts, and tamely pass them by,
Too proud to flatter, too sincere to lie.
Too plain to please, too honest to be great,
Give me, kind Heav'n, an humbler, happier state;
Far from the place where men with pride deceive,
Where rascals promise, and where fools believe;

Far from the walk of folly, vice, and strife,
Calm, independent, let me steal through life,
Nor one vain wish my steady thoughts beguile
to fear his lordship's frown, or court his smile.
Unfit for greatness, I her snares defy,
And look on riches with untainted eye:

To others let the glitt'ring bawbles fall,
Content shall place us far above them all.
Spectators only on this bustling stage,
We see what vain designs mankind engage;
Vice after vice with ardour they pursue,
And one old folly brings forth twenty new.

Perplex'd with trifles through the vale of life,
Man strives 'gainst man, without a cause for strife;
Armies embattled meet, and thousands bleed
For some vile spot, where fifty cannot feed. (Line 202)
Squirrels for nuts contend, and, wrong or right,
For the world's empire kings ambitious fight.

What odds? - to us - tis all the self-same thing,
A nut, a world, a squirrel, and a king.
Britons, like Roman spirits fam'd of old,
Are cast by Nature in a patriot mould,
Their souls engross'd by public weal or woe:
Inglorious ease, like ours, they greatly scorn;
Let care with nobler wreaths their brows adorn:

Gladly they toil beneath the statesman's pains,
Give them but credit for a statesman's brains.
All would be deem'd, ev'n from the cradle, fit
To rule in politics as well as wit.
The grave, the gay, the fopling, and the dunce,
Start up (God bless us!) Statesmen all at once.

His mighty charge of souls the priest forgets,
The court-bred lord his promises and debts;
Soldiers their fame, misers forget their pelf(d),
The rake his mistress, and the fop himself,
Whilst thoughts of higher moment claim their care,
And their wise heads the weight of kingdoms bear.

Females themselves the glorious ardour feel, (Line 225)
And boast an equal or a greater zeal;
From nymph to nymph the state-infection flies,
Swells in her breast, and sparkles in her eyes.
O'erwhelm'd by politics lie malice, pride,
Envy, and twenty other faults beside.

No more they pant for public raree-shows,
Or lose one thought on monkies or beaus;
Coquettes no more pursue the jilting plan,
And lustful prudes forget to rail at man:
The darling theme Cecilia's(k) self will chuse,
Nor thinks of scandal whilst she talks of news.

The cit (l) a Common-Councilman by place,
Ten thousand mighty nothings in his face,
By situation as by nature great,
With nice precision parcels out the state;
Proves and disproves, affirms and then denies,
Objects himself, and to himself replies;

Wielding aloft the politician rod,
Makes Pitt (m) by turns a devil and a god;
Maintains, ev'n to the very teeth of Pow'r,
The same thing right and wrong in half an hour:
Now all is well, now he suspects a plot,
And plainly proves, whatever is, is not:

Fearfully wise, he shakes his empty head,
And deals out empires as he deals out thread;
His useless scales are in a corner flung,
And Europe's balance hangs upon his tongue.
Peace to such triflers, be our happier plan
To pass through life as easy as we can.

Who's in or out, who moves this grand machine,
Nor stirs my curiosity nor spleen.
Secrets of state no more I wish to know
Than secrets movements of a puppet-show:
Let but puppets move, I've my desire,
Unseen the hand which guides the master-wire.

What is't to us, if taxes rise or fall?
Thanks to our fortune, we pay none at all.
Let muckworms, (n) who in dirty acres deal,
Lament those hardships which we cannot feel.
His Grace, who smarts, may bellow if he please,
But must I bellow too, who sit at ease?

But custom safe, the poet's numbers flow
Free as the light and air some years ago. (Line 270)
No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
To tax our labours, and excise our brains.
Burthens (o) like these, vile earthy buildings bear;
No tribute's laid on castles in the air.

Let then the flames of war destructive reign,
And England's terrors awe imperious Spain;
Let ev'ry venal clan and neutral tribe (Line 277)
Learn to receive conditions, not prescribe;
Let each new-year call loud for new supplies,
And tax on tax with double burthen rise;
Exempt we sit, by no rude cares oppress'd,
And, having little, are with little bless'd.
All real ills in dark oblivion lie,
And joys, by fancy form'd, their place supply;
Night?s laughing hours unheeded slip away,
Nor one dull thought foretells approach of day.

Thus have we liv'd, and whilst the fates afford
Plain plenty to supply the frugal board,
Whilst Mirth with Decency, his lovely bride,
And wine's gay god, with Temp'rance by his side,
Their welcome visit pay; whilst Health attends
The narrow circle of our chosen friends;

Whilst frank Good-humour consecrates the treat,
And woman makes society complete,
Thus will we live, though in our teeth are hurl'd
Those hackney strumpets, Prudence and the World.
Prudence, of old a sacred term, implied
Virtue, with godlike wisdom for her guide,

But now in gen'ral use is known to mean
The stalking-horse of vice, and folly's screen.
The sense perverted we retain the name;
Hypocrisy and Prudence are the same.
A tutor once, more read in men than books,
A kind of crafty knowledge in his looks,

Demurely sly, with high preferment bless'd,
His fav'rite pupil in these words address'd;
'Would'st thou, my son, be wise and virtuous deemd,
By all mankind a prodigy esteem'd?
By this thy rule; be what men Prudent call?
Prudence, almighty Prudence, gives thee all. (Line 310)

Keep up appearances; there lies the test;
The world will give thee credit for the rest.
Outward be fair, however foul within;
Sin if thou wilt, but then in secret sin.
This maxim's into common favour grown,
Vice is no longer vice, unless 'tis known.

Virtue indeed may barefac'd take the field;
But vice is virtue when 'tis well conceal'd.
Should raging passion drive thee to a whore,
Let Prudence lead thee to a postern door;
Stay out all night, but take especial care
That Prudence bring thee back to early prayer.

As one with watching and with study faint,
Reel in a drunkard, and reel out a saint."
With joy the youth this useful lesson heard,
And in his mem'ry stor'd each precious word,
Successfully pursu'd the plan, and now,
- Room for my Lord - Virtue, stand by and bow.?

And is this all - is this the worldlings's art,
To mask, but not amend a vicious heart?
Shall luke-warm caution and demeanour grave
For wise and good stamp ev'ry supple knave?
Shall wretches, whom no real virtue warms,
Gild fair their names and states with empty forms,

Whilst Virtue seeks in vain the wish'd-for prize,
Because, disdaining ill, she hates disguise;
Because she frankly pours forth all her store,
Seems what she is, and scorns to pass for more?
Well - be it so - let vile dissemblers hold
Unenvied pow'r, and boast their dear-bought gold;

Me neither pow'r shall tempt, nor thirst of pelf,
To flatter others, or deny myself;
Might the whole world be plac'd within my span,
I would not be that thing, that prudent man.
"What!" cries Sir Pliant,(p) 'would you then oppose
Yourself, alone, against an host of foes?

Let not conceit, and peevish lust to rail,
Above all sense of interest prevail.
Throw off, for shame! This petulance of wit;
Be wise, be modest, and for once submit:
To hard the task 'gainst multitudes to fight;
You must be wrong; the World is in the right.?

What is this World? - a term which men have got
To signify, not one in ten knows what;
A term, which with no more precision passes
To point out herds of men than herds of asses;
In common use no more it means, we find,
Than many fools in same opinions join'd.

Can numbers then change Nature's stated laws?
Can numbers make the worse the better cause?
Vice must be vice, virtue be virtue still,
Though thousands rail at good and practice ill.
Would'st thou defend the Gaul's destructive rage,
Because vast nations on his part engage?

Though to support the rebel Caesar's cause
Tumultuous legions arm against the laws;
Though scandal would our patriot's name impeach,
and rails at virtues which she cannot reach,
What honest man but would with joy submit
To bleed with Cato(q) and retire with Pitt? (Line 370)

Stedfast and true to virtue's sacred laws,
Unmov'd by vulgar censure or applause,
Let the World talk, my Friend; that World we know,
Which calls us guilty, cannot make us so.
Unaw'd by numbers, follow Nature's plan;
Asset the rights, or quit the name of man.

Consider well, weigh strictly right and wrong;
Resolve not quick, but once resolv'd be strong.
In spite of Dulness, and in spite of Wit,
If to thyself thou canst thyself acquit,
Rather stand up, assur'd with conscious pride,
Alone, than err with millions on thy side.

***

Selection from the Apology() Henceforth farewell then fev'rish thirst of fame;
Farewell the longings for a poet's name
Perish my Muse - a wish - bove all severe
To him who ever held the Muses dear ?
If i'er her labours weaken to refine
The gen'rous roughness of a nervous line.

Others affect the stiff and swelling phrase;
Their Muse must walk on stilts, and strut in stays;
The sense they murder, and the words transpose,
Lest poetry approach too near to prose.
See Tortur'd Reason how they pare and trim,
And, like Procrustes, stretch, or lop the limb.

(Lines 350 - 360)

So, Charles Churchill thumbed his nose at poets and their faults.

The editor of Churchill's Poetical Works chose to begin Night with the following quotation:

Contrarius evehor orbi. Ovid Met. Lib. 2.

(a) Night is an epistle to Robert Lloyd, a friend.

The editor wrote the following, much of which I do not agree.

"The poem was published in October 1761, and considered in the light of a familiar address to an intimate friend, is not subject to those strict rules of composition which more dignified poetry requires. Notwithstanding this due allowance, Night contains more faulty, bald and prosaic lines than any other of our author's productions. An instance of his sinning against his own better judgment, occurs in his frequent adoption of the coarse epithet Fool; for the use of which he in the Ghost censures Dr. Johnson, in the concluding part of the character of Pomposo," For 'tis with him a certain rule " The folly's prov'd when he calls fool."The title of the poem may probably have been suggested by Dr. Armstrong's " Day, an epistle to J. Wilkes of Aylesbury, Esq." then lately published, without the consent of the author, who was with the English army in Germany; from whence it was written in easy loose verse, with little regard to the matter, and less to the manner. In his epistle Dr. Armstrong ventured to censure Churchill, who expressed much resentment at the attack, and would never be reconciled with the author of it.

The principal object of Night was to exculpate the poet and the friend to whom it is addressed, from the censure of the world on the score of those irregularities : in conduct, which the celebrity of the foregoing poems rendered more conspicuous in the author of them, by inducing those who smarted under his lash, to make researches into his private character; and by publishing exaggerated statements of his improprieties of behaviour, to deaden the force of the blow they could not parry. His propensity to late hours; his employment of them in genial converse with his friends, he here avows; and great examples in antient (sp) and modern times, will certainly rescue his taste from the charge of singularity. Had he not been himself so severe a censor, private irregularities would have been softened down to eccentricities of genius, and his midnight parties would have been dignified with the amiable attributes of social enjoyment, "the feast of reason and the flow of soul;" instead of which, they were blazoned abroad as the orgies of brutal intemperance, and the scenes of vulgar and depraved gratification. His clerical character might indeed have induced stricter attention to the opinion of the world, though some justification is afforded by a similar predilection for tavern meetings and late hours, in Dr. Johnson; whose purity of life, habitual temperance, and stern morality, would have; dignified the most exalted station in the church. The Noctes Atticae in Ivy Lane, were ushered in by the Doctor; with his favorite toast, the dying ejaculation of Father Paul, "Esto perpetua!!"

Sad to say, the editor remains nameless known only by his initials W. T., Gray's-Inn (1804).

(b) Overall pattern or system of existences, forces, events and the power that appears to guide them. The entire material universe, or perhaps the wild, naked and uncivilized forces.

(c) Perhaps a reference to Flora's clock whereby different flowers represent time. The Roman goddess of flowers and spring was celebrated with an annual festival from the 28th of April till the first of May with extravagant merriment and lasciviousness. Flora is the opposite of Prudence.

(d) Dr. Samuel Johnson we presume, who would have made a better priest than the author.

(e) Galen was a Roman physician and philosopher.

(f) Rupert is not known. However, it may be that it was Prince Rupert

(g) Purblind is having little insight or understanding.

(h) Jove - Roman god over all gods and men.

(i) Jehu - Ninth century b.c. king of Israel. Son of Great "jumping" Jehosophat

(j) Catamite - boy used in sodomy.

(k) Memoirs of an Heiress, by Fanny Burney, 1782 wherein, the heroine Cecilia must to keep her fortune, marry a husband who will adopt her name. Mortimer Delville who loves her but finds numerous obstacles keeping them apart and people who use various schemes and prejudices to use Cecilia to their advantage

(l) As in cit and bumpkin characters made famous by L'Estrange in a Discourse over a pot of ale. Cit being of the city and bumpkin of the country.

(m) Lord Chatham, aka William Pitt who took a strong position against Spain and was a champion of the American colonies (but not willing to recognize their independence from England.)

(n) Muckworms are those responsible for hauling "night soil" from the cities' honey pots.

(o) Burtens, aka, burdens.

(p) Sir Paul Pliant in Congreve's Double Dealer, 1694, being so henpecked that he would not open a letter addressed to him until his lady read it first.

(q) "Cato" is a man of simple life, severe morals, blunt speech but undoubted patriotism like the Roman censor named Cato. (r) Following are information provided by the editor in the course of the poem and referred to by line number: Line 18. What have we with day to do?
Sons of Care 'twas made for you.

This is the more popular doctrine, and we believe most commonly governs the distribution of the four and twenty hours. Line 99. The poet and his friend were not fortunate in the attachments they formed at Westminister school, and poor Lloyd had, on more occasions than one, to lament the defection of pretended friends; ever Thornton, to whom he had addressed his Actor, and with whom he once lived upon terms of the most cordial intimacy, abandoned him in his distress, and treated him with the most cutting neglect. Lloyd, whilst in the Fleet prison, where he was supplied by Churchill with a guinea a week and a servant to attend him, thus gently alludes to Thornton's conduct, in a letter to Wilkes on the death of his benefactor,. "My own affairs I forbear to mention, Thornton is what you believed him, I have many acquaintance, but now no friend here." The Rev. William Sellon, minister of St. James' Clerkenwell, the person immediately alluded to in these lines, is again characterized in the Ghost, under the name Plausible. By the assistance of his more able contemporaries at Westminster school, he contrived to acquire some reputation there; but on his quitting that seminary, he forgot the obligation, and treated his open unsuspecting friends with a degree of illiberality and ingratitude, which their misconduct did not occasion, nor if it did, could. Justify.

Line 202. The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds; fight for a plot,
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the stain. HAMLET.

(Perhaps the editor is suggesting plagiarism(?). It is questioned that how can it be thievery if you steal from another thief.)

Line 225. The nation was now would up to a temporary pitch of enthusiasm in favor of Frederic of Prussia; all ranks united in his praise, and the appellation of the Protestant Hero was religiously bestowed upon an avowed atheist; his gratitude to this country for its blind partiality lasted no longer than its subsidies were regularly remitted. He hated England, because, like all tyrants, he dreaded the effect of public opinion in the only country where it could be decidedly expressed. He preferred a petty complimentary intercourse with the cringing witlings of Paris, whose servile flattery could only be equaled by the insatiable arrogance and vanity of their heroic patron, to the more lasting and solid approbation of a free and unbiassed (sp) people. Of Frederic's consummate excellence in the theory and practice of ht military art there can be but one opinion, but his literary productions, including his celebrated code, will never make him above mediocrity in the opinion of any one who has endured a perusal of them. The following instance of liberality, extracted from a newspaper of March 1758, may have called forth the poet's censure on female political enthusiasm: -- "Miss Bab. Wyndham of Salisbury, sister of Henry Wyndham, Esq. Of that city, a maiden lady of ample fortune, ordered her Banker to prepare the sum of 1000l. to be immediately remitted in her name as a present to the King of Prussia."

Line 270. An additional tax on windows was just imposed by parliament to commence from the 5th of April, 1762.

Line 277. Alluding to the severe precautions adopted by government after the rebellion of 1745, and to some difficulties which occurred in carrying into effect Mr. Pitt's measure, proposed in 1757, for raising 2000 men in the Highlands of Scotland for the British service in America.

Line 310. Nullum numen abest si sit prudential. This is the uniform text of Lord Chesterfield's letter to his son, published in 1774. His Lordship's precepts appear to have been anticipated by our author in this poem, and their material substance compressed in very few lines.

Line 370. Mr. Pitt, in Sept. 1761, indignant at the repeated insults offered to this country by Spain, proposed to the Cabinet an immediate rupture with that Court; in this proposition he was supported by Lord Temple, but was opposed by Lord Bute, and all the other members of the Cabinet: upon which Mr. Pitt and Lord Temple took their leaves, and their written advice on the subject being rejected by his Majesty, they resigned their seals of office into his hands on the 5th of October following. Upon this event an article appeared in the London Gazette, stating their resignation, the appointment of the Earl of Egremont as Mr. Pitt's successor in the situation of one of the principal Secretaries of State, and that, in consideration of the great and important services of Mr. Pitt, his Majesty was pleased to grant to the Lady Hester Pitt the Barony of Chatham; and also to confer upon William Pitt, Esq. An annuity of 3000l. during his own life and that of his wife and their eldest son.

The moment the preceding intelligence was published Mr. Pitt's character was assailed with the most ardent malignity and savage frenzy by all the hired servants of the administration, and by some mistaken zealots of the opposite faction. They branded him in various newspapers and pamphlets with the names of pensioner, apostate, deserter, and with every term of reproach that malice could apply or depravity suggest. They succeeded so far as to occasion a temporary diminution of his character in the public esteem. In a few weeks, however, the public prejudice began to subside, and the torrent ran a contrary course. When he went into the city on the ensuing Lord-Mayor's day, he was honored in all the streets through which he passed with unbounded marks of applause, and soon after he was presented with addresses from several cities and towns, thanking him for his important services and lamenting the cause of his resignation.

All doubts respecting the propriety of his conduct were dispelled by declaration of war against Spain, which his successors found themselves under the necessity of issuing on the 2nd of January 1762, though they postponed that important measure until the insults of the Court of Spain became so notorious that even Lord Bute confessed they could be no longer concealed.

Mr. Pitt, in July 1766, irrecoverably forfeited his popularity by his coalition with the very men against whom he had thitherto directed all the vas powers of his commanding eloquence. He was created Earl of Chatham, and, with the office of Lord Privy Seal, took the general controul (sp) over the measures of government. Mr. Townshend and General Conway were his managers in the House of Commons. His noble brother-in-law, Lord Temple, and his intimate friend, Lord Rockingham, not only refused to hold any situation under him, but peremptorily declined any interview or personal intercourse with him. He sensibly felt the loss of Lord Temple, whose gracious affability procured him the esteem of all ranks of people, while the splendor of his own talents commanded their admiration. This preyed upon his mind while his body was a victim to the gout, and the conduct of his new associates in office did not contribute to alleviate his uneasiness. In 1768 he resigned, was reconciled to Lord Temple, and retired to Hayes. He now confined his political exertions to a punctual attendance in the House of Lords, but, not withstanding his animated opposition, until his death in 1778, to most of the measures of government and particularly to the American war, he could never regain the confidence of the people.

****

The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill, with explanatory notes and an authentic account of his life:, Volumes I and II, London, Printed by and for C. and R. Baldwin, Bridge-street, Blackfriars, 1804. Night appears in pages 99 - 117 of volume one.

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