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An Essay in Critical Biography—Charles Churchill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Joseph M. Beatty Jr.
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Extract

A writer in The Annual Register, soon after the death of Charles Churchill, gave to the world the first account of his life; this was followed by The Genuine Memoirs of Mr. Charles Churchill. To Bell's edition of the poet's works is prefixed a life of the author by Doctor Johnson; this does not add anything new. Kippis, in his Biographia Britannica, followed most of the inaccuracies of the first biographer, but added some new material from his personal information. Anderson used these sources in the British Poets (1795). Robert Southey in his Life of Cowper, and William Tooke in an edition of Churchill's Works (1804) made more elaborate studies of the poet's life, but, unfortunately, were satisfied with earlier biographies or neglected to give careful references to original material. John Forster, in The Edinburgh Review (1845) pointed out many of Tooke's inaccuracies. Every biographer of Churchill from Chalmers in his English Poets to Leslie Stephen in The Dictionary of National Biography, followed Tooke, or Tooke modified by Forster. In 1903, R. F. Scott in his Admissions to the College of St. John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, made several valuable contributions to our knowledge about the early career of the satirist. Ferdinand Putschi, in Charles Churchill, sein Leben und seine Werke (1909), had not seen Mr. Scott's book, and followed the earlier biographers.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , 1920 , pp. 226 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1920

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References

1 Churchill's poem, Gotham, Book i, ll. 385-6, gives the month of the poet's birth (W. Tooke, The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill. With Copious Notes and The Life of the Author. In Three Volumes. London, 1844. Unless otherwise stated all references to Churchill's poems will be made to this edition).

2 In The Register of Admissions to the College of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge. Edited with Notes by R. P. Scott, M. A., Cambridge, 1903. Three parts. Part iii, p. 126, the poet's age is given on July 8, 1748, as “past sixteen,” which, allowing for the change in the calendar, would make the date of his birth in the year 1731-2.

3 Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George the Third, first published by Sir Denis C. Marchant, Bart., and now re-edited by G. F. Russell Barker, London and N. Y., 1894. In four volumes, vol. i, p. 142.

4 H. B. Guppy, Homes of Family Names in Great Britain. London, 1890, p. 281.

5 Churchill, The Prophecy of Famine, ll. 221-2.

6 Joseph Welch, Alumni Westmonasterienses, The List of the Queen's Scholars of St. Peter's College, Westminster, admitted on that foundation since 1663, etc. A New Edition, London, 1852, p. 281.

7 W. W. R. Ball and J. A. Venn (Editors), Admissions to Trinity College, Cambridge, in four volumes. London, 1911, vol. iii, p. 88.

8 Scott, op. cit., iii, p. 580.

9 Ibid.

10 St. James's Chronicle: or the British Evening Post, for Thursday, July 28—Saturday, July 30, 1763.

11 John Forster, in Historical and Biographical Essays. In two volumes. London, 1858, vol. ii, p. 213.

12 John Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester. In four volumes. London, 1807, vol. iv, part i, Appendix, p. 151. This speaks of his uncle as the Bishop of St. Asaph's, a clue which has not proved of value in determining the Churchill pedigree.

13 The Gentleman's Magazine for 1758, p. 452.

14 Ibid., for 1768, p. 495.

15 Welch, op. cit., p. 534. He was perhaps a day-student five years before this (Scott, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 580).

16 Scott, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 126.

17 Ibid., p. 581.

18 Memoir prefixed to 1767 edition of Churchill's Works (from The Annual Register).

19 Tooke, op. cit., Life prefixed to the poems.

20 Notes and Queries, 1st Series, vol. v, p. 75.

21 Tooke, op cit. p. xxiii.

22 Scott, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 581.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Memoirs, in Works, ed. 1767, p. iv. Such a small remuneration was not unusual for curates of parishes in the country districts of England. An advertisement for a curate in 1766 reads : “Wanted, Immediately, a Curate for the parish of East Anstey, in Devon. Salary, 25 £ per annum, with perquisites” (W. C. Sydney, England and the English in the Eighteenth Century, in two volumes. London, 1891, vol. ii, p. 332).

29 D. N. B. (Charles Churchill).

30 Notes and Queries, 8th Series, vol. iv, p. 295. Note by W. E. Harland-Oxley.

31 W. Hunt, The History of England. From the Accession of George III to the close of Pitt's First Administration, 1760-1801. London, N. Y., and Bombay, 1905, p. 43.

32 H. Walpole, Memoirs of George III, ed. 1894, vol. i, p. 198.

33 The North Briton, two volumes. London, 1763, numbers 42, 43.

34 Scott, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 581, and Wheatley, London, Past and Present, vol. iii, p. 132.

35 Scott, ibid.

36 Forster, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 225-6.

37 Tooke, op. cit., pp. xxxii-xxxiii.

38 Thomas Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, Esq., Interspersed with Characters and Anecdotes of his Theatrical Contemporaries, in two volumes. London, 1784, vol. I, p. 321.

39 The Critical Review, vol. xi (January-June, 1761), p. 209.

40 For details of this quarrel see my article, The Battle of the Players and Poets, 1761-1766, in Modern Language Notes, October, 1919.

41 Scott, op. cit., p. 582.

42 It was not reviewed until May, 1761.—The Critical Review, vol. xi, p. 209.

43 Tooke, op. cit., p. xxxviii.

44 Scott, op. cit., p. 582.

45 Memoirs (1767 edition of Works), vol. i, p. ix.

46 Walpole, Memoirs of George III, vol. I, p. 143.

47 Andrew Kippis; with the assistance of the Rev. Joseph Towers, LL. D., and other gentlemen. Biographia Britannica: or the Lives of the Most Eminent Persons who have Flourished in Great Britain and Ireland, etc. The second edition. London, 1784, vol. iii, p. 572.

48 Ibid., p. 571.

49 Notes and Queries, 8th Series, vol. iv, p. 295.

50 The Critical Review, vol. xii, pp. 370-372 (November, 1761). The Dictionary of National Biography wrongly gives the date as January, 1762.

51 D. N. B. (Churchill). They are reviewed in April, Monthly Review, vol. xxvi, pp. 313-315.

52 Forster, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 253.

53 Cf. my article, The Political Satires of Charles Churchill, in Studies in Philology, October, 1919.

54 The Gentleman's Magazine, xxxiii, p. 47; The London Chronicle (xiii, p. 91) mentions a new edition, Jan. 25, 1763.

55 Kippis, op. cit., p. 571. (The original passage was incorrectly punctuated as a question.)

56 T. Wright, Caricature History of the Georges… . London, 1868, p. 268.

57 The North Briton, vol. I, pp. 154 ff., incorrectly dated May 21, 1762.

58 The Gentleman's Magazine for 1763, p. 363 (July). Cf. also London Chronicle, vol. xiv, p. 6.

59 Cf. note 53.

60 Letters betwen the Duke of Grafton, etc., and John Wilkes, Esq. with Explanatory Notes. In two volumes. London, 1769, vol. i, pp. 240-241.

61 Ibid., vol. i, p. 309.

62 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 317-318.

63 Ibid., p. 319. The fact that this is an iambic pentameter line suggests that it may be a quotation.

64 Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs of His Own Life, in four volumes, York, 1790, vol. iii, p. 158. Noted by Tooke, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 48-7.

65 The St. James Chronicle for October 4, 1763. (In the Library of Yale University.)

66 Ibid., Oct. 6 and 18-20.

67 The Grenville Papers: being the Correspondence of Richard Grenville Earl Temple, K. G., and the Right Hon : George Grenville, their Friends and Contemporaries. Edited, with Notes, by William James Smith, Esq., in four volumes. London, 1852, vol. ii, pp. 155-160.

68 Percy Fitzgerald, The Life and Times of John Wilkes, M. P. Lord Mayor of London, and Chamberlain. In two volumes. London, 1888, vol. i, pp. 187-8.

69 Ibid., p. 188.

70 The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford. Edited by Peter Cunningham. Now first chronologically arranged. In eight volumes. London, 1857, vol. iv, p. 129.

71 Tooke, op. cit., vol. I, p. xlvii.

72 The London Chronicle, vol. xiv, p. 518.

73 Ibid., vol. xv, p. 74. D. N. B. incorrectly gives the date as November, 1763.

74 G. F. Russell Barker, in D. N. B. (R. Lloyd).

75 The St. James's Chronicle, for Dec. 6-8, 1763.

76 The London Chronicle, xv, p. 175.

77 Ibid., xv, p. 314.

78 Ibid., xvi, p. 148. D. N. B. gives incorrect dates for Books II and III, and also for The Candidate.

79 Ibid., xv, p. 467.

80 Ibid., xv, p. 576.

81 Ibid., xv, pp. 203 and 325.

82 The Monthly Review, vol. xxxiii, p. 101.

83 Notes and Queries, 1st series, vol. iv, p. 82.

84 Letters between the Duke of Grafton, etc … & John Wilkes, Esq., vol. i, pp. 332 ff.

85 The Grenville Papers, vol. ii, p. 459.

86 Lloyd's Evening Post and British Chronicle, vol. xv, p. 477.

87 Scott, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 582.

88 Tooke, op. cit., vol. I, p. ci.