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with the evening, made us dance. There was a great deal of company; it was a little ball well managed well 'lighted. We danced with propriety, "we talked only to the mothers; the ' daughters had the air of puppets. In fhort, I believe, that melancholy A and weariness never affumed with 'lefs grace the mask of gaiety. I was 'forced, however, to make the best of ' it, and to ftay till four in the morn.. ing. I was quite exhaufted; my fifter faw it; I was forry for it. I was the hero of the night, and gave B myself up to it as much as was poffible. The following is the picture which the Marquifs afterwards draws of Madamoiselle de Ferval. This young lady deferves the respect and attachment of all who know her worth, She has wit without pretending to it; fhe has graces to which the is a C * ftranger; a moft beautiful face, in which is difplayed a most beautiful • mind; in fhort, she has talents which aftonish me, She fings with an agreeableness that only nature can give. She is a perfect mistress of mufic, and plays on the harpsichord D * with the utmoff intelligence. If you had seen her act Zara, Ihave fo good an opinion of your tafte, that I am perfuaded you could not have refufed her your tears, which are the trueft applaufes. Her goodness is rare and admirable. Her genius feems to have been well cultivated. She neither pretends to have knowledge, nor affects to conceal it. I never faw any thing more amiable. Correct, therefore, your opinion in regard to this lady and her fifters. Their birth, education, beauty, and virtue entitle them to every homage.' Speaking of romances, Mad. de Narton fays to Mad. de Ferval, Do you place all romances in the fame clafs? Are they all in general prohibited? I except, fays he, fome English romances. Those of Richardson, without doubt ? Of Richardfon? Can one poffibly give G that denomination to thofe beautiful hiftories of the world and of human nature? It is virtue herself who there inftructs you by the organs of genius. I am highly indebted to that great mafter of education, from whom one readily acquires fo much experience, and whom one cannot H read (if one is not in a manner effentially vicious) without an ardent defire of becoming, nay, without being better. I have just given my

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oldest daughter Clariffa to read. "That is a school of excellent, of no-. ble morals. Her fifters are yet too young to be improv'd by fuch ftudies.

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You may imagine what effect Clariffa ought to produce on a heart perfectly artlefs. My daughter read it alone; but he told me all her thoughts. I faw her entertain a ftrong liking for Lovelace; fhe could not blame Clariffa for loving him. What comparison could there be between that lover and the husband whom they would have forced upon ber? What tyrants were her parents! But in the ar'dour of her enthufiafm the fentiments of concern and compaffion which the felt for that fugitive alone with her lover in his chariot, charm⚫ed me: What humiliation, Mama, faid the ? This man, however tender be may be, is not her husband. See her then dependent upon him! What a fituation for a woman of her education! Ah! fbe would have preferred mifery, death it felf, to fuch a difgrace, if the bad only had time for reflection. With thefe noble fen with this dignity of foul, which is quite tranfported. It is the prefernaturally the height of virtue, I was

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⚫vative of the heart.'

'It is then from Clarissa that Madamoifelle de Ferval has conceived her ⚫ first ideas of love?'

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"Yes, replied the, judge whether the will find it formidable.'

• But will the not take all men for Lovelaces ?'

Oh! that danger is by no means alarming. Inclination always makes us too fanguine.In order to fe cure a daughter from feduction, I depend more on her virtue, her tendeinefs, and her confidence in me, than in the dread of Lovelaces.

Remarks on the GENT. MAG. for Feb. 1765; by a Correfpondent.

61, 2d col.] Dr Tronchin of Amfterdam," fhould it not be "of

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Geneva?"

P.67, 1 col.] "Mafter Froth-they will draw you-and you will hang them." The fenfe of this paffage is very obvious I think. He plays upon hang and draw, alluding to punishment for treafon. "The tapiter will draw you, which they do when they froth the pot; and you will bang them, for when the measure is delivered to the guests, you (froth) will appear as an evidence to convict them of cheating their guests, by giving fhort meafuee: When the guests blow off the frota

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froth, they will find the measure but three parts fuil; a common case in ale houses.

Whereas they will draw you, and you will hang on them," has no allufion to any thing, nor no meaning in A itfelf.

P. 73, 1 col.] R. P. fhould feem to be (though not completely expreffed) requiefcat in pace, fo common on old monuments,or the name of the sculptor,

P. 73, 2d col.] "A defcription of the city of Oxford;" it fhould be "ci- B ty and univerfity;" they are diftinct bodies, and the description afterwards includes both.

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"is fituated on the North fide of the Thames ;"no fuch thing; the main river at Oxford is the Ifis (famous in poetry) which is navigable a great way above, and comes out of Gloucef. C terfbire, the town of Lechdale in that County being fituated upon it. At Oxford it joins the Cherwell, a fmaller river, and they running down by Abingdon, are joined below Dorchefer by the Thame, which comes out of Buckinghamshire, or its neighbourhood, and D gives name to, or takes its name from a village called Thame, on the borders of Oxfordshire. Upon this union, just below Dorchefer, the Thame takes the lead in the name, tho' a much smaller river, and only admits a finals from fis, being called Thames, and in Latin Themefis quafi Thame-ifis.

This union is celebrated by many of our poets under the title of the marriage of the Thames with the Isis; a kind of an Irish fortune hunter's match with a rich heirefs.

This mistake about Oxford and the Thames is alfo in a defcription of London and its environs, in 6 vols. 8vo. pub- F lithed by Dodfey

P. 75, 2d col.] "I find alfo Doctors Grew, Parker, and Potter to have been bithops here." How came he to find thefe without finding the reft? I mean from 1686 to Dr Potter: There were Talbot, &c.

"on the North fide of this ci- G ty, &c. founded by Dr Radcliffe."-He did not properly found it, but the truftees, with the favings of his money, after the library was finish'd.

I am, Sir, &c. W. H. TN. Some Account of the late Mr CHARLES CHURCHILL; from a Pocket Volume eniled Memoirs of Mr CHARLES CHURCHILL, just published.'

MR

R. Charles Churchill is faid to have been defcended from an ancient and honourable family. His

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father was curate and lecturer of St John's, Weftminster, and he was born in a house near Westminster-Abbey, where his mother still lives.

After having been taught to read, he was sent to WeAminfer Ichool, where he made a rapid progrefs in grammar learning, and when he was thought to be of a proper age, was carried by his father to Oxford; but being offended at the trivial and fuperficial queftions that were put to him at his examination, he wrote an invective againft the gentleman who examined him, for which the university thought fit to reject him.

He therefore returned to London, and went again to Westminster school, where he made farther improvements to the fatisfaction of his father & his friends.

At 17 years of age he fell violently in love with a young woman, not remarkable, we are told, either for beauty or wit, but endowed with accomplishments fuperior to both. She was fenfible and agreeable in the highest degree, had great good nature, and a fteady, uniform, and unaffected virtue.

The young couple married, after a very short courtship, and lived happily together for about two years, when Churchill's father, who intended him for the church, queftioned him very ftrictly about his inclinations; He was pleafed to find him not averfe, and though he had not been educated at the univerfity, and confequently had taken no degree, he made no doubt of getting him ordained when he was of a proper age.

Accordingly when he was three and twenty, he was, after proper examination, ordained by Dr Sherlock, the late Bishop of London.

The writer of the Memoirs, where he gives an account of Churchill's rejection at the univerfity, fays, it was caufed by a fatire which he wrote against the gentleman that examined him, having taken offence at an examination too flight to give his abilities play. But from the account he gives of his ordination, it appears that the bishop at least understood that he was rejected for deficiency. After Mr Churchill's examination by the bishop, fays he, his lordship exclaimed, What fort of an examiner must this man bare had, when he was pronounced to be deficient in fcholaftic education!*

Some time after he was ordained, he got a curacy of 271. per Ann, in Wales, whither he went to refide, with his wife.: He

He foon gained the esteem and affection of his parishioners, became a popular preacher, and was as much followed as Whitfield or Romaine. He was, befides, a jolly companion and A keen fportfman; but though the great plenty of the country, and the confequent cheapnels of all neceffaries,made his feven and twenty pounds at leaft equivalent to 120 l. near London; and though he sometimes received prefents from his parishioners, yet he foon fpent what money he brought with him from B England, and as an expedient to obtain a fresh fupply, he opened a cyder cel. lar, and became at once parfon and publican.

It appears from the Memoirs that this cyder cellar was in his own dwelling house, and that he performed the oface of waiter and tapfter himself. Parfon, bring me a mug of the right fort, fays one; this is excellent fuff, fays a nother. Bufinefs came in a-pace, and lindfey woolfey picked up money.

He was, by nature, very liberal, and by a defect common in the most amiable characters, unthrifty and extravagant; partly, therefore, by his virtue, and partly by his folly, he not only diffipated the accumulated profits of his church and his cellar, but he contracted debts which he had not the leaft hope of being able to pay.

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This he calls, indeed, a fatirical vein z as it has fince been fufficiently displayed on more public occafions, the pub. lic must give it fuch a denomination as it appears to merit.

It is ftrange that if this account of Churchill's infolvency is true, his cre- E ditors fhould be uncommonly fevere. It is ftrange that a man who was not only esteemed but beloved by his pa rishioners, who was known to have become poor, partly, at least, by feeding the bungry and cloathing the naked, fhould be purfued with unrelenting p malignity by those who knew they could get nothing for themselves by diftreffing him: We are told, howewer, that when this man," the lover and the love of human kind," propofed to divide his all among his creditors, the propofal was rejected, and he had no expedient to keep out of prifon G

but to run away.

He accordingly quitted the place with proper fecrecy and expedition, and returned once more to London, without any view of fubfiftence but the liberality of friends.

His father exerted his utmost to procore him a living, but without fuccefs; and his want of fuccefs is, by the author of the Memoirs, imputed to the offence his fon was perpetually giving by the petulant abuse of those with whom he thought fit to be offended.

At length, however, his father died, and he fucceeded him as lecturer and curate of St John's; this lectureship and curacy brought him in about one hundred a year, and to encrease his revenue, which was yet but fcanty, he undertook to teach the young ladies of Mrs Dennis's boarding school, to write English with grammatic accuracy and elegance.

Of this employment, after about 17 months, he became weary, and therefore quitted it; but while he continued it, he got a habit of ftrolling almost every night to the play-houfe, where, remarking what he thought right and wrong in the actors, he conceived the defign of writing his Rofciad in the year 1762.

Though his father had lived with decency and reputation upon the revenue of his curacy and lectureship, Churchill ran in debt, notwithstanding his additional falary for teaching Englib, and notwithstanding his debts he gave up the employment for which he received that falary, without any ra. tional prospect of another.

His houfe was continually blocked up by creditors and bailiffs, and he had, befides, frequent quarrels with his wife, which would have rendered home irkfeme if it had been free.

His biographer fays it is not incumbent upon him to affign the cause of thefe quarrels between Churchill and his wife, but he has inferted a letter from Churchill to himself, by which it fufficiently appears: This letter the reader will find in the fequel to this account, not only as it clears up a fact, but as it ftrongly marks the writer's character.

His moft preffing debts were paid or compounded by his friend Mr Lloyd, fince dead, about the time that he pub lifhed a poem called the Ador; and Churchill foon after published his Rof

ciad.

This poem was well received, and went through feveral editions; he therefore formed a defign to fubsist as an author; and immediately threw off his gown: His biographer fays, he took this step that he might with propriety acquaint himself with fcem which, as a writer, it wo fary to paint, b gyman, it wo

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"I have, in both respects, acted as I told you I would the last time I was at your house. I have got rid of both my caufes of complaints, the [wife] I was TIRED OF, and the gown I was difpleased with.

"You have often heard me fay I had no fort of chance of enjoying any ecclefiaftical preferment, and that I heartily defpifed being a pitiful curate. Why then fhould I breathe in wretchedness and a rufty gown, when my mufe can furnish me with felicity and a laced coat?

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Befides, why should I play the hy- E pocrite? Why should I feem conten. ted with my lowly fituation, when I am ambitious to aspire at, and with for a much higher? Why should I be called to account by a dull, phlegmatic ***, for wearing white thread ftockings, when I defire to wear white filk ones, and a fword? In short, I have looked into myself, I have examined myself attentively, and I have found I am better qualified to be a gentleman than a poor curate. It has been, therefore, from principle I have shook off the old ruity gown, the piss burnt bob, and the brown beaver, which fet fo uneafy on me. I find no pricks of confcience for what I have done, but am much easier in my mind. I feel myfelf in the fituation of a man that has carried a d-d heavy load for a long way, and then fets it down. So much for my [wife] and gown.

"I fhall be at the Shakespeare tomorrow night, and (hall be glad to fee you there. And believe me to he, dear -, what I really am, and shall allways continue, Yours C. Churchill.

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The quondam parfon being now a man of wit and humour about town, fre quented taverns and 'coffee-houfes, and places of public diverfion, got acquainted with bucks and bloods, and perfons of all characters; he alfo fometimes, in order, as it is faid, to fee low life, was a frequenter of obfcure alehouses, where he frequently found porter, a liquor he was very fond of, in great perfection.

His party poems very foon made him rich, and it was his turn to affift his friend Lloyd, which he did with a liberality that does him honour; for Lloyd being thrown into the Fleet, Churchill fent him a guinea every week for a confiderable time.

The next thing he did was to de bauch and run away with a young la dy: The particulars are not related, but, if report fays true, they were fuch as greatly aggravated the guilt, even of feduction and adultery.

But whatever was Churchill's moral character, we are told that as a fatyrift he became of fo much importance that he received promifes of very great advantage if he would join the miniftry, and exert his talents in their behalf, and a promise of no less than a penfion of three hundred a year, if he would only be filent.

Thefe propofals, it is faid, he refufed, and refute them be certainly did if they were ever made, for he contitrain till he died. nued to write, and to write in the fame

As his pieces were eagerly bought at a high price, he got money a-pace, and it appears that his expences were equal to his gains, however uncertain they must have appeared to common fenfe. He took a very good honfe upon Acton Common, which he furnished with great elegance; he kept his poft-chaife, faddle-horses, and pointers; he fished, fowled, himted, courfed, and took every other diverfion that the feasons offered.

Nothing is related of Churchill, except his quarrel with Hogarth and Leach, till his journey to Bologne, to vifit his friend Mr Wilkes. A few days after his arrival there, he was feized with a malignant fever, which put a period to his life.

A NORTH BRITON Extraordinary,
Published at Edinburgh.

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O many it has appeared furprising that the Scotch, never famed for long-fuffering nor flaw to anger, fhould of late -have born tamely and unanswered the greatest

greatest torrent of impertinent abuse that ever malice and ftupidity poured out against fuperior merit; but to thofe who confider how flattering it is to become the object of envy, the wonder will cease, and they will agree that the filent contempt with which we receive all this fcurrility, is also its properen answer.--Let then our fouthern

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ftates fhone while enriched by trade, when princes were their merchants, and their merchants princes. Venice and Florence then became the admiration of the universe for the wisdom of their policy, the grandeur of their public works, and the elegance of their private luxury. In vain do we look out for the fame refinements in London, that has now for more than a century been esteemed the richest city in Europe. In private life we find taftelefs riot and indelicate gluttony mistaken for luxury, and inftead of wifdom and order in their police, we find the moft abfurd and ineffectual regulations, filth, danger, aad

brethren rail at us for the lead we take in war and in commerce, in the arts and in the fciences; their jealousy is the ftrongeft and most fincere acknowledgement of our fuperiority, and justifies, in fome de gree, that conscious pride which leads us to draw comparisons between them and ourfelves, perhaps too much to their difadvan-B inconveniency in every street, the peace of

tage. The English, in general, are unqueftionably less instructed than the Scotch, and their principles more debauched, yet there are many among them who, by their learning and virtue, are worthy of our highest efleem and imitation; and even among their nobility there are fome poffeffed of an elevation of foul, and delicacy of fentiment that would do honour to our most illuftrious Scotch families, who trace their origin beyond the name of the English nation itfelf. Let us then allow them in particular what we deny them in general, and acknowledge the fuperior merit of an Englishman wherever it exifts, while they, by cavilling at every private character from North of Tweed, only ferve to fix more indifputably the reputation of the whole. There is, however, one general fuperiority, of which they are fully fenfible, and which no Scotchman is hardy enough to deny. In all humility I confess their riches; but if I may be allowed, like the fox in the fable, to find fault with the grapes I cannot reach, I will affert that the richest part of their nation is the most contemptible, and that their fuperiority in this, is the true cause of their inferiority in every thing else. Whenever in a nation riches are fought after as the fummum bonum, when they fupply the place of birth and education, virtue and tafte, the morals of that people will foon be corrupted, their manners will degenerate, and they will justly acquire the diftinguishing appellation of "Les Sauvages d'Europe.' How far this is already the cafe in England, I leave every man to judge from his own observation. This is, however, certain, that riches, even with us where they are fo rare, do not bestow the fame importance as with them where they are (o common. Here an illiterate ftockjobber, who can just fet his mark to his quarter's difcharge, would hardly be as much revered as a mafter of a college, nor a cheese-monger who can buy a borough, as much respected as a peer of the realm. But to leave declaiming against their vices, let us endeavour to trace the proper effects of riches in their taste and manners. We all know with what fplendour the Italian

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the city trufted with an old feeble and undifciplined watch, and the fafety of the public roads with thief takers and villains. The public buildings (peak for themselves. They have been long noted for poorness of defign, and clumfinefs of execution, and if any thing of tafte appears among them of late, we may boldly afcribe it to a foreigner, or to a Scotchman. The works of a Gibbs diftinguish themselves, and we all know to whom the Londoners owe the elegant defign of a work now carrying on, which they, however, have difgraced with an infcription of their own, that the meanest fchoolmaster in the meanest parish in Scotland, would have been ashamed of. While Black-friars bridge fhall laft, it will be a monument of Scotch architecture, and of English Latin. And here by the way it is pleasant to observe, that the fame people who charge poverty on the Scotch as their greatest crime, and rail at the miniftry for bestowing a trifling sum towards building a bridge that refts only one abutment in Scotland, have not been ashamed to receive of the public thousands and ten thousands, for repairing the old crazy and ill contrived bridge of London; and that at this moment the poorest peafant in Scotland is actually taxed bis proportion for the great and national objects of paving the streets of that opulent metropolis, in imitation of Edinburgh, and of bringing mackrels and fprats a halfpenny a pound cheaper to the tables of the wealthy Londoners.

If fuch be the effects of wealth on the morals taste and manners of the English, we have no reason to envy them fo dangeGrous a fuperiority; and yet even this fuperioty they owe to accident, and not to any extraordinary merit which they may arrogate to themselves; for whoever confiders the fatal concurrence of circumftances that checked the progrefs of industry in Scotland, will rather be furprised, that any (park of that spirit should have remained among us. While the English were im

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The parliament has granted for paving the streets 15,000l, and for the fish scheme 2500l.

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