ry,
he saw in the writing of verse the sure way to success. Like so many a
literary adventurer of the century, he carried his first efforts
unsuccessfully from bookseller to bookseller. The impulses of his wit
were satirical; he was not dismayed by failure; the stage had
entertained him and irritated him, and he made the stage the subject of
his first triumph. "The Rosciad" was in every sense a triumph. Its
stings galled the vanity of the players to frenzy. At all times a
susceptible brotherhood, their susceptibilities were sharply stirred by
Churchill's corrosive lines and acidulated epigrams. Their indignation
finding vent in hot recrimination and virulent lampoon only served to
make the poem and its author better known to the public. Churchill
replied to the worst of his assailants in "The Apology," which rivalled
the success of "The Rosciad," and gained for the satirist the
friendship of Garrick, who had affected to disdain the praises of "The
Rosciad," but who now recognized in time the power of the satirist and
the value of his approval. Churchill himself was delighted with his
good fortune. He was the talk of the town; he had plenty of money in
his pocket; he was separated from his wife, freed from his uncongenial
profession, and he could exchange the solemn black of the cleric for a
blue coat with brass buttons and a gold-laced hat.

[Sidenote: 1762--Newspaper polemics]

Lest the actors whom he had lashed should resort to violence for
revenge, he carried with ostentation a sturdy cudgel. It was a
formidable weapon in hands like Churchill's, and Churchill was not
molested. For Churchill was a man of great physical strength. He
tells the world in the portrait he painted of himself of the vastness
of his bones, of the strength of his muscles, of his arms like {55} two
twin oaks, of his legs fashioned as if to bear the weight of the
Mansion House, of his massive body surmounted by the massive face,
broader than it was long. The ugly face was chiefly remarkable,
according to the confession of its owner, for its expression of
contentment, though the observant might discern "sense lowering in the
penthouse of his eye." Like most giants, he overtaxed his strength,
both mentally and physically. Whatever he did he did with all his
mighty energy. He loved, hated, worked, played, at white heat as it
were, and withered up his forces with the flame they fed. In nothing
did his zeal consume itself more hotly