asters, priests, pimps, and players, his name is
still something more than a mere dissyllable, and seems the shadow of the
sound that Mother Dulness was wont to whisper in her children's ears when
fretting wakefully on her neglected breasts. The Satirist, of all poets,
calls the enquiry of the world upon himself. The Censor of manners should
in his own be irreproachable. The satirist of a nation should feel that in
that respect in which he censures he is whole and sound; that in assailing
others he stands upon a rock; that his arrows cannot by a light shifting
of the wind return to his own bosom. It was not so with Churchill. But he
had his virtues--and he died young.

"Life to _the last enjoy'd_!! here Churchill lies."

It is not of his life but his writings we purpose to speak. It is not to
be thought that his reputation at the time, and among some high critics
since, could be groundless. There is an air of power in his way of
attacking any and every subject. He goes to work without embarrassment,
with spirit and ease, and is presently in his matter, or in some matter,
rarely inane. It is a part, and a high part of genius, to design; but he
was destitute of invention. The self-dubbed champion of liberty and
letters, he labours ostentatiously and energetically in that vocation; and
in the midst of tumultuous applause, ringing round a career of almost
uninterrupted success, he seldom or never seems aware that the duties he
had engaged himself to perform--to his country and his kind--were far
beyond his endowments--above his conception. His knowledge either of books
or men was narrow and superficial. In no sense had he ever been a student.
His best thoughts are all essentially common-place; but, in uttering them,
there is almost always a determined plainness of words, a free step in
verse, a certain boldness and skill in evading the trammel of the rhyme,
deserving high praise; while often, as if spurning the style which yet
does not desert him, he wears it clinging about him with a sort of
disregarded grace.

The Rosciad--The Apology--Night--The Prophecy of Famine--An Epistle to
William Hogarth--The Duellist--Gotham--The Author--The Conference--The
Ghost--The Candidate--The Farewell--The Times--The Journey--Fragment of a
Dedication--such is the list of _Works_, whereof all England rung from
side to side--during the few noisy years he vapoured--as in the form of
shilling or half-crown pamphlets they frighted the Town f