applied for matriculation at the University of Oxford, but is SAID to
have been rejected at his examination, in which, instead of answering the
questions proposed, he broke out into satirical reflections on the
abilities of his judges. From Oxford he repaired to Cambridge, where he
was admitted into Trinity College. Here, however, his stay was very
short,--he was probably repelled by the _chevaux-de-frise_ of the
mathematics;--and in a few weeks he returned to London, disgusted at both
universities, shaking their dust off his feet, and, perhaps, vowing
vengeance against them--a vow which he has kept in his poetry. In his
"Ghost," for instance, he thus ridiculed those forms of admission--

"Which Balaam's ass
As well as Balaam's self might pass,
And with his master take degrees,
Could he contrive to pay the fees."

Penniless, and soured by disappointment, Churchill returned to his
father's house; and, being idle, soon obtained work from the proverbial
"taskmaster" of all idle people. Having become acquainted with a young
lady, named Scott, whose father lived in the vicinity of Westminster
School, he, with true poetic imprudence, married her privately in the
Fleet, to the great annoyance of both their parents. His father, however,
was much attached to and proud of his son, and at last was reconciled to
the match, and took the young couple home. Churchill passed one quiet
domestic year under the paternal roof. At its termination--for reasons
which are not known--he retired to Sunderland, in the north of England,
and seems there to have applied himself enthusiastically to the study of
poetry--commencing, at the same time, a course of theological reading,
with a view to the Church. He remained in Sunderland till the year 1753,
when he came back to London to take possession of a small fortune which