Poetical Works | Page 6

followed "The Farewell," "The
Times," and "Independence," which was his last published production.
Two fragments were found among his MSS., one "A Dedication to
Warburton," and another, "The Journey," his latest effort, and in which
the last line now seems prophetic--
"I on my journey all alone proceed."
A far and final journey was before this great and ill-fated poet. He was
seized with one of those sudden longings to see a friend, which are not
uncommon with the impulsive. He determined to visit Wilkes at
Boulogne, and conveyed his purpose to his brother John in the
following note:--"Dear Jack, adieu, C.C." On the 22d of October 1764,
he started for France, met Wilkes; but on the 29th was seized with
miliary fever, under which, while imprudently removed from his bed to
be conveyed at his own desire to England, his constitution sunk, and he
expired on the 4th of November, in the thirty-third year of his age. He
is said to have died calmly and firmly, rebuking the excessive grief of
his friends, and repeating some manly but not very Christian lines from
his own poetry. By a will made during his sickness, he left an annuity
of sixty pounds to his wife (in addition, we suppose, to her former
allowance), fifty pounds a-year to Miss Carr, besides providing for his
two boys, and leaving mourning rings to his more intimate friends.
Wilkes got the charge of all his works. His body was brought to Dover,
where he now sleeps in an old churchyard, which once belonged to the
church of St Martin, with a stone over him, bearing his age, the date of
his death, and this line from one of his own poems--
"Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies."
The words which he is reported to have used on his deathbed, should
have been inscribed on the stone--
"What a fool I have been!"
Hogarth had expired on the 25th of October, ten days before his
opponent. Lloyd was finishing his dinner, when the news of his friend's

death arrived. He was seized with sudden sickness, and crying out, "I
shall soon follow poor Charles," was carried to a bed, whence he was
never to rise. Churchill's favourite sister, Patty, who had been engaged
to Lloyd, soon afterwards sank under the double blow. The premature
death of this most popular of the poets of the time, excited a great
sensation. His furniture and books sold excessively high; a steel pen,
for instance, for five pounds, and a pair of plated spurs for sixteen
guineas. Wilkes talked much about his "dear Churchill," but, with the
exception of burning a MS. fragmentary satire, which Churchill had
begun against Colman and Thornton, two of his intimate friends, and
erecting an urn to him near his cottage in the Isle of Wight, with a
flaming Latin inscription, he did nothing for his memory. The poet's
brother, John, an apothecary, survived him only one year; and his two
sons, Charles and John, inherited the vices without the genius of their
father. There was, as late as 1825, a grand-daughter of his, a Mary
Churchill, who had been a governess, surviving as a patient in St
George's Hospital,--a characteristic close to such a wayward,
unfortunate race.
For the errors of Churchill, as a man, there does not seem to exist any
plea of palliation, except what may be found in the poverty of his early
circumstances, and in the strength of his later passions. The worst is,
that he never seems to have been seduced into sin through the
bewildering and bewitching mists of imagination. It was naked
sensuality that he appeared to worship, and he always sinned with his
eyes open. Yet his moral sense, though blunted, was never obliterated;
and many traits of generosity and good feeling mingled with his
excesses. Choosing satire as the field of his Muse, was partly the cause
and partly the effect of an imperfect morale. We are far from averring
that no satirist can be a good man, but certainly most satirists have
either been very good or very bad men. To the former class have
belonged Cowper, Crabbe, &c.; to the latter, such names as Swift,
Dryden, Byron, and, we must add, Churchill. Robust manhood, honesty,
and hatred of pretence, we admit him to have possessed; but of genuine
love to humanity he seems to have been as destitute as of fear of God,
or regard for the ordinary moralities.

We have to deal with him, however, principally as a poet; and there can,
we think, now be but one opinion as to his peculiar merits. He
possessed, beyond all doubt, a strong understanding, a lively
imagination, a keen perception of character--especially in its defects
and
weaknesses--considerable wit without any humour, fierce
passions and hatreds,