the
high places of power and emolument--this was the sentiment in the national
bosom which gave a meaning to the poem, and found it a reception. Such a
sentiment is not scrupulous or critical--it is passionate merely--and asks
not the happinesses of humour, wit, fancy, of the graphical and the
characteristic. It asks bitter animosity, and vile vituperation, and is
satisfied.

The individuality of a nation is curiously made up. The country which they
inhabit makes a part of it, the most easily understood. Their manners,
customs, and institutions make another part of it, much of which is
outward, picturesque, and easily seen. Their history, that which they have
done, and that which they have endured, makes a part. And lastly, that
which runs through all, rises out of all, animates all, their proper
personality, their intellectual and moral character, makes a part--and now
you have the whole. We demand of the writer who will, in earnest, paint
the people, that he shall know all these things extensively, variously,
profoundly. And of the Satirist, who will hold up the nation to dislike
and to laughter, that he too shall show he knows them, their defects and
their deformities, their crimes and their customs, their sins and their
sorrows, their sufferings and their absurdities, their monstrosities and
their misfortunes, God's curse or of their own consciences, that may have
stricken their country and their condition, and starved the paupers in
body and in soul. Such chastisement might be terrible, and not undeserved.
But to inflict it, was far beyond the power of poor Charles Churchill.

"Waft me, some Muse, to Tweed's enchanting stream,
Where all the little Loves and Graces dream:
_Where, slowly winding, the dull waters creep,_
_And seem themselves to own the power of sleep;_
_Where on the surface lead, like feathers, swims;_
There let me bathe my yet unhallow'd limbs,
As once a Syrian bathed in Jordan's flood;
Wash off my native stains, correct that blood
Which mutinies at call of English pride,
And, deaf to prudence, rolls a patriot tide."

Ay, much the better would he have been of a dip in the Tweed. He was a
big, burly fellow; but, though no great swimmer, he would have found it
buoyant after a debauch. His native stains, washed off, would, alas! have
sadly discoloured the Angler's Delight. Worse than a hundred
Sheep-washings. But at one gleam of the showery bow, the waters would have
resumed the