The passage you quote from Homer* ought never one moment to be out of your mind.

July 13, 1762.

Yours,

C. CHURCHILL.

MY DEAR WILKES,

Oct. 11, 1764.

You are certainly the best tempered fellow in the world; so ready to forgive the idleness of a friend, and yet never giving him an opportunity of paying you in kind. I am now in the same sentence to thank you for several letters, and likewise for the acquaintance of Goy,+ which I deem one of the greatest obligations you have conferred upon me. I have a thousand things to say relative to fools and wise men, Englishmen in France, and Scotsmen in England, but your own affairs are in their

Bold is the task, when subjects grown too wise
Instruct a monarch where his error lies;
For though we deem the short-lived fury past,
'Tis sure the mighty will revenge at last.

+ For some account of M. Goy, see vol. iii. p. 287. On Churchill having intimated his wish to visit Wilkes in France, with some doubt as to his safety in so doing, in consequence of the then political position of affairs between the two parties, and the part taken in the North Briton as to the dispute between D'Eon and Guerchy the French ambassador, Wilkes wrote thus, on the 20th of Jan. 1764, to his agent Cotes.

“Goy felt the pulse of the French ministers about my coming here, and Churchill's upon the former report. The answer was sent from the Duke de Praslin, by the king's orders, to M. St. Foy, Premier Commis des Affaires Etrangeres, in these words, "Les deux illustres J. W. et C. C. peuvent venir en France et a Paris aussi souvent et pour autant de tems, qu'ils le jugeront à propos."

own nature so much more pressing, and as to time, so very critical, that I shall postpone every other consideration, and give them that preference in my letter they have in my mind.

Shall you come over in November? A very pithy manner of asking a question, on the decision of which your whole welfare turns, which you submit to others, when you should ask it of yourself, concerning which your friends may mean well, but you only from your own feelings can judge rightly. But take my thoughts thus.

If you stay in France, you will undoubtedly be outlawed (the consequences of the outlawry are however nothing to a man not foolishly mad after this land of folly). You will not be able to go on now against Halifax, the cause cannot soon be tried. Yet, if I may advise, stay in France. There is scarcely a consideration that could make me think your return to England in November defensible in the eye of common sense.

Have I made out clearly what I mean? It is a cause in which you have too near a concern, for me to be cool and disinterested, and my heart is too much affected to give my head fair play. As there is no man, who is more ready to ask advice, so I am sure there is no one more able to give it you than yourself—I mean your cool and rational self-Consúlt that, and you cannot do

wrong.

Lend us Miss Wilkes-I long to see her-and I am sure you will not refuse her, when I tell you that every true Englishman will be happy in seeing

her, and consider her (which I hope she will prove) as a forerunner of him, to whom every true Englishman is most essentially indebted.

Friendship great as mine can scarcely forgive your inattention to the care of your health. Reflect that your country demands your life. The cause of liberty is in your hands, and that blessing so much dearer than life, must remain precarious, if not fixed by you. No one can try the Secretary of State, if you do not, and though there is no doubt but there may be arbitrary ministers in future times, yet 'tis with me a matter of question, whether there may ever be another Wilkes.

There is a new print just published of you, very like. I have wrote under it the four following lines from Pope, who is happy in them:

A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride,
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.

I am ever yours,

C. CHURCHILL.

The foregoing letters are almost the only ones which have been preserved, nor does it appear that Churchill was in habitual correspondence with any other individual than Wilkes; his letters are therefore scarce, and consequently valuable. If they, however, are not of a more interesting nature than some we have seen, there is little cause for regret. The autograph under the Portrait to this volume, is a fac simile of the signature to an original letter in the possession of the Publisher of these

volumes it is, we fear, too characteristic of the writer:

MY DEAR GARRICK,

HALF drunk-half mad-and quite stript of all my money, I should be much obliged if you would enclose and send by bearer, five pieces: by way of adding to favours already received by yours sincerely,

CHARLES CHURCHILL.

Dr. Kippis in his article of Churchill, in the Biographia Britannica, for several particulars in which he acknowledges himself much indebted to the obliging information of Mr. Wilkes,* alleges that Churchill contributed much of the poetry to "the Library," a respectable periodical miscellany, of which Lloyd was the editor; it extended only to two volumes; on reading the poetry we find only the following epigram which can be safely ascribed to Churchill:

On reading in the Newspaper, that the Players had given a benefit to a distressed Clergyman.

WRITTEN BY A CLERGYMAN.

What fine discourses each revolving year,
On charity, from our divines we hear;
The gift of charity so little theirs,

They send a starving brother to the Players;

And who, says Garrick, wonders at the fact,

Who knows not Priests can talk and Players act.

Chalmers, in his more satisfactory account of Churchill in the Biographical Dictionary, says that Dr. Kippis expressed more gratitude than the small and imperfect information given justified. We have availed ourselves of both authorities, rectifying many errors in each.

THE WILL OF CHARLES CHURCHILL.

I CHARLES CHURCHILL, of Acton, in the county of Middlesex, Clerk, but now at Boulogne in France, being in an ill state of health, but of sound mind, memory, and understanding, do make, publish, and declare this to be my last Will and Testament, in manner and form following. In the first place, I give to my Wife an annuity of sixty pounds a year for her natural life. Item, I give to Elizabeth Carr, of Turnham Green, in the county of Middlesex, spinster, an annuity of fifty pounds a year during her natural life. I give to his Grace, the Duke of Grafton, the Earl and Countess Temple, John Wilkes, Humphry Cotes, and Robert Lloyd, esquires, and Mr. Walsh, merchant at Boulogne, each a ring, as a memorial of my regard to their merit. I desire my dear friend, John Wilkes, Esquire, to collect and publish my works with the remarks and explanations he has prepared, and any others he thinks proper to make. I give all the rest, residue, and remainder of my estates, of what nature or kind soever, to my executors hereinafter named, IN TRUST, to be divided equally between my two sons, Charles and John, and the survivor of them. Lastly, I nominate, constitute, and appoint the said Humphry Cotes, and John Churchill, my brother, of Church Street, Westminster, executors of this my last Will, and guardians to my said children. In witness, &c. 3rd Nov. 1764.

CHARLES CHURCHILL.