MR. W. TOOKE'S EDITION OF CHURCHILL'S POEMS. Tms edition is

a labour of love, and almost of a life. Perhaps from having been born and bred among persons who were contemporaries of the satirist, Mr. W. TOOKE was a great admirer of CHURCHILL. To discover the allusions of his author, he "waded through some hundred" of periodical and political volumes. Having illustrated the poet's meaning for himself, he determined to make the public partakers of his labours ; and, forty years ago, (in I804,) published an edition which served as the basis of that before us, if it was not substantially the same. That publication, however, has long been out of print; and Mr. PICKERING having properly determined to include CHURCHILL in his "Aldine Poets, Mr. Tooxe has revised the annotations of his youth ; added what additional illustra- tions he has since picked up or was no longer restrained from using ; with some passing remarks on "useful knowledge," Lord BROUGHAM, and Metropolitan M.P.s, which seem indebted for their place in an edition of CHURCHILL to some personal feeling of the editor.

To say that the Aldine edition of CHURCHILL is the best pub- lished, is not saying much ; for we believe it is the only one with

any pretence to elaboration in the notes. In an absolute sense, how. ever, it is a good edition—the best, indeed, we are now likely to .have. The hobbyish feeling which prompts these undertakings, and conducts them to any success, is nearly extinct as regards CHURCH- ILL; and if it could be revived, it could not be so successfully ex- erted. Living half a century nearer to the poet's age, among persons who had probably perused his productions on their first appearance, ,Mr. TOOKE had a clue to internal allusions, (and modes of treat- ment rendered necessary by the law of libel,) which no mere acumen and research could afterwards supply ; whilst the same proximity to the age supported him in the drudgery of moiling amid the periodical and temporary publications of the early part of GEORGE the Third's reign. In a future edition the form of Mr. TOOKE'S matter might be improved. The notes upon Cutiscumes mention of general topics—as gipsies—are not needed by any one likely to ,read this author ; nor does such mention of a general topic by the poet cause obscurity in his text or puzzle the reader. The notices, too, are often fuller than is needed,—a biography, where a note would seem enough. These, however, as well as occasional repe- titions, are errors on the right side. In so temporary a writer as CHURCHILL, and one who deals so frequently in allusion, it is far better to have too much than too little.

Full as Mr. TooxR is, there is much left unelucidated, and which must even remain so. Part of this is owing to the obscure character of many of the persons attacked; more to the rankness of CuuRcHrLis abuse, and his copious use of the commonplaces of lampooners, which often rendered it impossible to discover the intended person by his lineaments when he was not designated by name or particular anecdotes. In every publication after his 'first three, and perhaps after his first, (The Rosciad,) this gross defect is present. Every one of his works possessed another fault, yet more fatal to permanent attraction—a wearying prolixity, some- times produced by a cumbrous introduction, sometimes by a free use of the stock of commonplace declamation animated by CHURCHILL'S vigorous genius and genuine English, and sometimes by a total want of selection and an endeavour to exhaust the sub- ject by saying all that could be said. In general, however, these three causes were operating all at once. The only work entirely free from them is Night; a poetical epistle to his friend LLOYD, written to enforce the greater merit of open profligacy over hypocrisy, after the author had deserted his wife, been compelled by his parish- ioners and his clerical superior to resign his lectureship of St. Mar- garet's, thrown off his gown, and plunged into all the coarse pro- fligacy of that age : for which exception the brevity of Night and its subject probably may account. The .Rosciad is encumbered by a useless and laboured introduction, stuffed with commonplaces upon the drama and dramatic poets; but the actors are, for the most part, delineated with remarkable discrimination, skill, and exactness. At this time CHURCHILL was new to the public, and wrote with care ; he was also regular in his habits, at least more regular than he soon became ; and he had given a constant attendance for months, "in the front row of the pit," to the study of the originals. Elated by sudden success, stimulated by strong political passions and his friendship for WILKES, and often writing during the in- tervals of fits of intoxication, he afterwards fell into all the faults his nature was inclined to, whilst he scarcely did justice to his native genius, and never attempted to raise it to the height it could have reached by laborious cultivation. This wearying prolixity was complained of in his own age whenever he was not treat- ing a subject or persons in which temporary passions and politics were strongly excited. Now its effects are such that no editorial elucidation or critical skill can ever make CHURCHILL popular. We almost doubt whether any general object would induce a person of the rising generation to read him through.

This prolixity can only be feebly indicated by criticism; for it pervades every part of every work, except the histrionic portraits in The Rosciad, and possibly Night. Some arithmetical facts may give an idea of his verboseness in gross. The Prophecy of Famine, his most popular work, and considered one of his best, contains nearly six hundred lines ; yet nearly one half consists of general satire, whose connexion with the burlesque pastoral is nil, and whose allusions to the subject are vague. The poem might open at the 273d line without any abruptness. In like manner, the Epistle to William Hogarth does not really begin till towards the middle. The most marked instance of ill-judged diffuseness, however, is The Candidate ; for here CHURCHILL admits of comparison with GRAY, who likewise treated the same subject on the same side—the con- test of the profligate Earl of SANDWICH for the High Stewardship of the Ljniversity of Cambridge. In point of mere genius—of an innate fire and force of mind analogous to the inherent qualities of a soil—CHuacHILL had probably the advantage ; but the superior judgment and art of GRAY enabled him to produce a per- sonal satire upon a temporary event which can still be read and re- read with admiration and zest, whilst it must require some neces- sary reason to go through The Candidate. On the single subject, such as we have stated it, CHURCHILL pours out upwards of eight hundred lines, without the relief to the monotony of a poet speaking in his own person which is given by dialogue or by any artifice of a dramatic form ; and the bulk of his remarks are not pointed at the hero of his satire, (who occupies little more than a hundred lines,) but the poem is a hodgepodge de omnibus rebus et quibusclf m aliis. GRAY'S Candidate, or the Cambridge Courtship, is less th..n forty lines; it is cast in the form of dramatic scene, introducing the three liberal professions, Law, Physic, and Divinity, in acting dialogue ; pointing ridicule at each, but satirizing the Church, which supported SANDWICH, as bitterly as the Candidate himself. The personal and moral traits of the Peer, which are diffused or in- dicated in CnuRcHILL, are condensed by GRAY into a few graphic touches of vigorous individuality that place the man before the reader. The superior art of GRAY is also shown in his general effect. Without sparing a trait of SANDWICH'S vices, and touching a sore with caustic, he degrades his victim, making and leaving him an object of contempt. In this justness of perception, or nicety of art, CHURCHILL was altogether deficient. Sometimes he paints his characters in proportion to their condition and power; but generally speaking, the absurd exaggeration of a blind and hot- headed partisan pervades them all. To read his sketches of subordinate agents or mere tools in politics or vice, it would be supposed they possessed the power of Nero and the capacity of the Devil, and must have left an impress on their age; yet the reader has never heard of many of these monsters, and some were so obscure that they cannot be identified. CHuncHtLL, in short, be- came a mere partisan of faction, if not an unconscious tool of WILKES ; wasting a genius that was akin to DRYDEN'S though of a lower grade, and a command of English with a facility of versifica- tion that approached his master, in putting into powerful verse the sentiments and ideas of demagogues and party-scribblers. A political satirist must indeed support the opinions of his own aide; but if he is to survive the heats and animosities of parties and per- sons, he must support them in his own way, and in a mode equal to his own capacity, not on a level with theirs. Had DRYDEN and JUNIUS lent themselves to reecho the rabble and the rabble's flat- terers, Absalom and Achituphel and the Letters of Junius would have been as little regarded by posterity as CHURCHILL'S Poems.

Of his various works, we incline to think Night the most finished, and The Rosciad the most interesting to readers of the present day. The introduction is indeed clumsy and cumbersome; and the main object, consisting of the characteristics of players, many of whose names are now unknown to the generality of readers, is not of a large or elevated kind. But there is a perception of individual qualities so nice as to stand unrivalled in criticism on the histrionic art, and a delineation of these qualities so powerful as to place the player before the reader as distinctly as the critic saw him from the pit. Such is the power of essential truth, that it triumphs over a mean and temporary subject. What can be more graphic than this gibbeting of unlucky Jacitsobt1

"Next Jackson came. Observe that settled glare, Which better speaks a puppet than a player ; List to that voice—did ever Discord hear Sounds so well fitted to her untuned ear? When, to enforce some very tender part, The right hand sleeps by instinct on the heart, His soul, of every other thought bereft, Is anxious only where to place the left ; He sobs and pants to sooth his weeping spouse, To sooth his weeping mother turns and bows: Awkward, embarrass'd, stiff, without the skill Of moving gracefully, or standing still, One leg, as if suspicious of his brother, Desirous seems to run away from Vother."

More lenient if not more just is the following character of SHERIDAN, the father of RICHARD REINSLEY, and progenitor of a

race distinguished even to the fourth generation.

"Next follows Sheridan ; a doubtful name, As yet unsettled in the rank of fame : This, fondly lavish in his praises grown, Gives him all merit; that allows him none; Between them both we'll steer the middle course, Nor, loving praise, rob Judgment of her force. "Just his conceptions, natural and great, His feelings strong, his words enforced with weight; Was speech-famed Quin himself to hear him speak, Envy would drive the colour from his cheek : But stepdame Nature, niggard of her grace, Denied the social powers of voice and face. Fix'd in one frame of features, glare of eye, Passions, like chaos, in confusion lie; In vain the wonders of his skill are tried To form distinctions Nature hath denied.

His voice no touch of harmony admits, Irregularly deep, and shrill by fits. The two extremes appear like man and wife, Coupled together for the sake of strife.

"His action 's always strong, but sometimes such,

That candour must declare he acts too much.

Why must impatience fall three paces back? Why paces three return to the attack? Why is the right leg, too, forbid to stir, Unless in motion semicircular?

Why must the hero with the nailor vie, And hurl the close-clenched fist at nose or eye ?

In royal John, with Philip angry grown, I thought he would have knock'd poor Davies down. Inhuman tyrant ! was it not a shame To fright a king so harmless and so tame ? But, spite of all defects, his glories rise, And art, by judgment form'd, with nature vies. Behold him sound the depth of Hubert's soul, Whilst in his own contending passions roll; View the whole scene, with critic judgment scan, And then deny him merit, if you can. Where he falls short, 'tis Nature's fault alone; Where he succeeds, the merit's all his own."

It was in this character, and above all in this particular scene, that the actor excited so strong an admiration in GsoRoR the Third, whilst GARRICK, who had taken Falconbridge, misconceived the part, and could not look it. When the manager, greedy of praise, asked his friend the Lord in Waiting for his Majesty's opinion on Falconbridge, as a set-off to the spontaneously-told praise of King John, Dares vanity was so shocked at the reply

that he immediately withdrew the play, though the boxes were all taken for several nights, and the town agog.

Of CHuRcHu.L's political satires, the public was right in awarding the palm to The Prophecy if Famine. It derived an attraction from chiming in with the public hatred of the &rosters, .and the national antipathy to Scotland which Lord DOTE's Admi- rnistration had revived in all its force : but in addition to his unri- valled power of vituperation, the form of the pastoral gave variety of character and sentiment ; and a further variety arose from the ap- pearance of Famine after the close of the songs of the Shepherd Swains, to predict the approaching triumph of Scotchmen under Bute. There is more measure in the opening, and more humour too, than CHtutcHILL usually displayed—that is, opening with the .proper beginning, at the 273d line.

"Two boys, whose birth, beyond all question, springs From great and glorious, though forgotten, kings, Shepherds, of Scottish lineage, born and bred On the same bleak and barren mountain's bead, By niggard Nature dootn'd on the same rocks To spin out life, and starve themselves and flocks, Fresh as the morning, which, enrobed in mist, The mountain's top with usual dulness kiss'd, Jockey and Sawney to their labours rose; Soon clad, I ween, where nature needs no clothes; Where, from their youth inured to winter-skies, Dress and her vain refinements they despise. "Jockey, whose manly high-boned cheeks to crown, With freckles spotted, flamed the golden down, With meikle art could on the bagpipes play, E'en from the rising to the setting day ; Sawney as long without remorse could bawl Home's madrigals, and ditties from Fingal: Oft at his strains, all natural though rude, The Highland lass forgot her want of food, And, whilst she scratcled her lover into rest, Sunk pleased, though hungry, on her Sawney's breast."

The following landscape is also delineated with satiric truth. Sentiment and the picturesque are abstracted from the bleak and barren.

"Far as the eye could reach no tree was seen; Earth, clad in russet, scorn'd the lively green: The plague of locusts they secure defy, For in three hours a grasshopper must die: No living thing, whate'er its food, feasts there, But the cameleon, who can feast on air. No birds, except as birds of passage, flew ; No bee was known to hum, no dove to coo: No streams, as amber smooth, as amber clear, Were seen to glide, or heard to warble here: Rebellion's spring, which through the country ran, Furnish'd with bitter draughts the steady clan: No flowers embalm'd the air, but one white rose, Which on the tenth of June by instinct blows; By instinct blows at morn, and when the shades Of drizzly eve prevail, by instinct fades."

The cave of Famine, in which the Swains take shelter and sing their ditties, is vitiated by the exaggeration and hyperbole we have already spoken of; but we may take it as an example of the satirist's coarser style.

"One, and but one poor solitary cave, Too sparing of her favours, Nature gave ; That one alone (hard tax on Scottish pride!) Shelter at once for man and beast supplied. Their snares without, entangling briars spread, And thistles, arm'd against the invader's head, Stood in close ranks, all entrance to oppose; Thistles now held more precious than the rose. All creatures which, on Nature's earliest plan, Were form'd to loath, and to be loath'd by man, Which owed their birth to nastiness and spite, Deadly to touch, and hateful to the sight ; Creatures which, when admitted in the ark, Their saviour shunn'd, and rankled in the dark, Found place within : marking her noisome road With poison's trail, here crawl'd the bloated toad : There webs were spread of more than common size, And halfstarved spiders prey'd on half-starved flies : In quest of food, efts strove in vain to crawl; Slugs, pinch'd with hunger, smeaed the slimy wall: The cave around with hissing serpents rung; On the damp roof unhealthy vapour hung ; And Famine, by her children always known, As proud as poor, here fix-cl her native throne."

In The Rosciad, though not treating the histrionic profession with much consideration, CHURCHILL refrained from reflections on his Dilajesty's Servants ; but, stung by some remarks in the Critical Review, then edited by SMOLLET, and perhaps annoyed by the fury of the actors, who went about town complaining and declaiming, he inserted a bitter attack upon the whole tribe in his Apology Ad- dressed to the Critical Reviewers. With his usual virulence, it has his native force, and as much contemptuous wit as HOGARTH'S strollers dressing in a barn.

"The stage I chose—a subject fair and free- 'Tis yours—'tis mine—'fis public property. All common exhibitions open lie For praise or censure to the common eye. Hence are a thousand hackney writers fed; Bence Monthly Critics earn their daily bread. This is a general tax which all must pay, From those who scribble down to those who play. Actors, a venal crew, receive support From public bounty for the public sport. To clap or hiss all have an equal claim, The cobbler's and his lordship's right the same. All join for their subsistence; all expect Free leave to praise their worth, their faults correct. When active Pickle Smithfield stage ascends, The three days' wonder of his laughing friends, Each, or as judgment or as fancy guides, The lively witling praises or deridea. And shere's the mighty difference, tell me where. Betwixt a Merry Andrew and a player ? "The strolling tribe, a despicable race!

Like wandering Arabs, shift from place to place.

Vagrants by law, to justice open laid, They tremble, of the Beadle's lash afraid, And, fawning, cringe for wretched means of life To Madam Mayoress, or his Worship's wife.

"The mighty monarch, in tbeatric sack, Carries his whole regalia at his back ; His royal consort heads the female band, And leads the heir-apparent in her hand ; The pannier'd ass creeps on with conscious pride, Bearing a future prince on either side. No choice musicians in this troop are found To varnish nonsense with the charms of sound; No swords, no daggers, not one poison'd bowl; No lightning flashes here, no thunders roll;

No guards to swell the monarch's train are shown—

The monarch here must be a host alone ; No solemn pomp, no slow processions here; No Ammon's entry, and no Juliet's bier.

"By need compell'd to prostitute his art, The varied actor flies from part to part ; And, strange disgrace to all theatric pride!

His character is shifted with his side.

• • • "In shabby state they strut, and tatter'd robe,

The scenes blanket, and a barn the globe:

No high conceits their moderate wishes raise, Content with bumble profit, humble praise.

Let dowdies simper, and let bumpkins stare, The strolling pageant hero treads in air: Pleased for his hour, he to mankind gives law, And snores the next out on a truss of straw.

"But if kind Fortune, who sometimes, we know, Can take a hero from a puppet-show,

In mood propitious should her favourite call,

On royal stage in royal pomp to bawl, Forgetful of himself he rears the head, And scorns the dunghill where be first was bred.

Conversing now with well-dress'd kings and queens, With gods and goddesses behind the scenes, He sweats beneath the terror-nodding plume, Taught by mock honours real pride t'assume.

On this great stage the world no monarch e'er

Was half so haughty as a monarch-player."