Let one poor sprig of bay around my head Life to the last enjoy'd, Here Churchill lies; Whilst, (O what joy that pleasing flattery gives!) CANDIDATE. LONDON: PRINTED FOR JOHN BELL, BOOKSELLER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES. CHARLES CHURCHILL. THIS gentleman was the son of the Rev. Mr. Charles Churchill, Curate and Lecturer of St. John's in Westminster. He was also educated in Westminster-school, and received some applause for his abilities from his tutors in that famous seminary. His capacity, however, was greater than his application; so that he received the character of a boy who could do good if he would. As the slightest accounts of persons so noted are agreeable, it may not be amiss to observe, that having one day got an exercise to make, and from idleness or inattention having failed to bring it at the time appointed, his master thought proper to chastise him with some severity, and even reproach his stupidity: what the fear of stripes could not effect, the fear of shame soon produced; and he brought his exercise the next day finished in such a manner, that he received the public thanks of all the masters. Still, however, it is to be supposed that his progress in the learned languages was but slow; nor is it to be wondered at, if we consider how difficult it is for a strong imagination, such as he was possessed of, to conform and walk tamely forward in the trammels of a school education; minds like his are ever starting aside after new pursuits; desirous of embracing a multiplicity of amusing ob B jects, eager to come at the end without the painful investigation of the means; and, if we may borrow a term from the mercantile world, a genius like his, disdaining the painful assiduity of earning knowledge by retail, aimed at being a wholesaledealer in the treasures of literature. This much was necessary to premise, in order to palliate his being refused admittance into the University of Oxford, to which, he was sent by his father, for want of proper skill in the learned languages. He has often mentioned his repulse upon that occasion; but whether his justification of himself is to be admitted we will not undertake to determine certain it is, that both he and his companions have often asserted that he could have answered the college examination had he thought proper; but he so much despised the trifling questions that were put to him; that instead of making the proper replies, he only launched out in satirical reflections upon the abilities of the gentlemen whose office it was to judge of his. Be this as it will, Mr. Churchill was rejected from Oxford, and probably this might have given occasion to the frequent invectives we find in his works against that most respectable university. Upon his returning from Oxford, he again applied himself to his studies at Westminster-school, and there, at the age of seventeen, contracted an intimacy with the lady to whom he was married, and who still survives him. This was one of those im |