Churchill were veritable sons of John Bull. But they differed in their political outlook. Johnson always spoke depreciatingly of Churchill's poetry, and Churchill continually poked fun at the Doctor in return. But even that strange compound of wisdom and prejudice, humaneness and choler, felt constrained to give a grudging testimony to his younger opponent. To Boswell he said: "I will acknowledge that I have a better opinion of him than I once had; for he has shown more fertility than I expected. To be sure, he is a tree that cannot produce good fruit: he only bears crabs. But, Sir, a tree that bears a great many crabs is better than a tree which produces only a few." We are, I suppose, to understand the productions crabs, because the political principles they promulgate were exceedingly bitter to the Doctor's palate. Boswell seemed to feel this, for he adds, “In this depreciation of Churchill's poetry I could not agree. . . Churchill has extraordinary vigor both of thought and expression." This is a Scotchman's tribute to the sworn enemy of his country, who had been sacrilegious enough to batter his revered idol. Politics were not alone the cause of the Doctor's dislike. Churchill stood in proud isolation as the one great literary figure of the age independent of patronage either official or aristocratic. Without exception, all the other noted authors of the day received perquisites in one form or another. Smollett was a ministerial hireling; Johnson a pensioner of state: pensions and preferments were offered to Churchill in vain, though no exertions were spared even to purchase his neutrality. Like Antony, the Doctor felt his genius rebuked.

During the summer of 1763, Churchill's health began to fail. Accompanied by Miss Carr, he made a visit to Wales, and took up his residence at Monmouth for a few weeks. Here he mixed freely with the inhabitants, and was so delighted with their rustic manners that he wrote Gotham, in which he portrays himself as an Arcadian king.

Returning to the metropolis, for the next six months he lodged at Richmond, and resumed active political partnership with Wilkes. It was not long, however, before their association was again severed. Owing to increasing governmental persecution, the great demagogue was forced to fly the country, and seek

asylum in France. Churchill dwells on the event in the following lines:

The future ages shall his name adore
When he can act and I can write no more.
England may prove ungrateful and unjust,
But fostering France shall ne'er betray her trust.
'Tis a brave debt which gods on men impose,
To pay with praise the merit e'en of foes:
When the great warrior of Amilcar's race
Made Rome's wide empire tremble to her base,
To prove her virtue, though it gall'd her pride,

Rome gave that fame which Carthage had denied.

The two friends had weathered many storms together. Churchill now stepped to the wheel, and under his direction The North Briton continued its course, Wilkes signalling instructions across the channel from time to time.

In the hope of retrieving a shattered constitution, Churchill now removed to a house on Acton Common. Here in the society of the friends he loved, he proposed to pass his days in lettered ease, removed indeed from the hubbub of the metropolis, but sufficiently near to keep in touch with the grand machine of politics. Before long, however, the flame of life began to sputter. His next poem, The Farewell, is premonitory of the end. But again the flame revived momentarily with increased brightness when he wrote the poem Independence. In the absence of their great militant tribune, the spirits of the people had begun to droop, and Churchill strives to rally them in the following lines:

O ye brave few, in whom we still may find
A love of virtue, freedom, and mankind,
Go forth in majesty of woe arrayed;
See, at your feet your Country calls for aid.

Go forth-nor let the siren voice of ease
Tempt ye to sleep, whilst tempests swell the seas;
Go forth-nor let Hypocrisy, whose tongue
With many a fair, false fatal art is hung,

Like Bethel's fawning prophet, cross your way,
When your great errand brooks not of delay;
Nor let vain Fear, who cries to all she meets,
Trembling and pale, "A lion in the streets,"
Damp your free spirits; nor let threats affright,
Nor bribes corrupt, nor flatteries delight. . . .
Go forth-the champions of your native land,
And may the battle prosper in your hand-
It may, it must-ye cannot be withstood-
Be your hearts honest, as your cause is good.

This was the voice of a dying man concealing his pangs. In The
Journey (published posthumously), we almost see him like
Bunyan's sorely tried warrior at the river. He shows in the
following lines he is prepared for the passage:-

The mind of man craves rest, and cannot bear,
Though next in power to God's, continual care.
Genius himself (nor here let Genius frown)
Must, to ensure his vigor, be laid down,

And tendered well: had Churchill known but this,
Which the most slight observer could not miss,
He might have flourished twenty years or more,
Though now, alas, poor man, worn out in four.

With that overmasting sudden impulse to see a friend, so common in a dying person, he made up his mind to visit Wilkes in France. The only intimation he gave his brother John of his intention was conveyed in a laconic note, "Dear Jack, adieu, C.C." On October 22, 1764, accompanied by his friends Guy and Cotes, he sailed for France, and Wilkes met them at Boulogne. On the 29th, Churchill was seized with a miliary fever, which baffled the skill of the two physicians called in. While lying in this state, he expressed a wish to return to England, which his friends imprudently indulged, and his removal from a warm bed terminated his life. Wilkes testified that his faculties remained unimpaired to the end. The following extracts are the most important features of the will he made on his death-bed: "In the first place, I give to my wife an annuity of sixty pounds a year during 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 all the rest, residue and remainder of my estates, of what nature or kind soever, to my executors. . . . in trust to be equally divided between my two sons, Charles and John."

The unexpected death of a man who had for more than three years occupied the attention of the country created something of a sensation. His popularity with the greater public, second only to that of Wilkes, gave to his death the appearance of a national loss. His friends meanwhile moved for his burial in Westminster Abbey; but the authorities frowned, and the project fell through. His body was brought to Dover and deposited in the

old churchyard formerly belonging to the collegiate church of St. Maria. A little previously, in The Candidate, he had written:

Let one poor sprig of bay around my head

Bloom whilst I live, and point me out when dead ;

Let it (may Heaven, indulgent, grant that prayer)
Be planted on my grave, nor wither there:

And when, on travel bound, some rhyming guest

Roams through the churchyard whilst his dinner's dress'd,
Let it hold up this comment to his eyes-

"Life to the last enjoyed, here Churchill lies."

His burial in a place so much frequented by travellers gives an air of prophecy to the lines, the last of which, with his age and the date of his death, are inscribed on the gravestone.

Half a century after he had been laid to rest, "the Pilgrim of Eternity, veiling the lightnings of his song," approached, and laid his tribute on "Churchill's Grave." The careers of Churchill and Byron were strangely parallel. In the early parts of their lives' journeys they both sank deep in the slough of despondency and debt, but regained the bank, and suddenly woke up on particular mornings to find themselves famous. They found the bonds of wedlock galling fetters, burst them and sought illicit partnerships. In the practice of their art, Dryden and Pope were their respective mentors, and with unrivalled satire, unsparingly they lashed the abuses of their times. Their ruling passion was liberty. Carrying her banner on different fields, they fell early in the battle, with victory in sight. Dying on foreign strands, their bodies were brought home, refused burial in the Abbey, and now lie in equally unpretentious graves.

THOMAS F. BROCKHURST.

Boston, Mass.

SOME BOOKS ABOUT THE WAR

Justification is scarcely needed for an article upon the literature of the war. About nothing else are so many important and absorbing things being written at present, because nothing else is so interesting or has more need to be well known. Even those who devote themselves as specialists to this subject cannot read all the books relating to it; much less the great body of men and women who must choose and read but a few. And in the great mass from which selection is to be made are many of little worth and others deliberately intended to mislead. Authors more active than well informed hasten into this field for publishers anxious to reap the harvest that invites them; while partisans, propagandists, and those who are disloyal in our midst work without ceasing to make traps and delusions for those who are credulous and simple. There is some danger that amid the vast number of books printed about the war certain ones which are excellent and worthy of wide consideration may be lost to view or not noticed in the libraries or shops where they are gathered. It may, accordingly, be worth while to point out some of the things which are appearing, since there can scarcely be greater duty than understanding and pondering upon the questions which concern these times. The present are days of sorrow, and the world's life is tragedy now. Happy are they who can do their part, and happy will they be hereafter if they had wisdom and strength when their parts were about to be played.

For understanding the greater and more general causes of the struggle in which the white races fight,—that is, the political, the economic, the geographical, and the ethical factors,-several books have appeared which may be read with interest and profit by any who have time to go through them. Here may be mentioned particularly the writings of Allen, Bullard, Gibbons, Powers, and Seymour.

The Great War' is an ambitious undertaking, which may be highly commended without expectation that it will be as widely

1The Great War, by George H. Allen. Philadelphia: George Barrie's Sons. 1915.