reached this elevation, as surely as did his great contemporary, and the
object of his implacable hatred and abuse, William Warburton. But his
early marriage, and his increasing responsibilities, produced pecuniary
embarrassments, and these must have tended gradually to sour him against
his profession, and to prepare his mind for that rupture with it which
ultimately ensued. To support himself and his family, he opened a school,
and met with considerable encouragement--although we suspect that his
scholars felt something of the spirit of the future satirist stirring in
the motions of his rod, and that he who afterwards lashed his century did
not spare his school. In the year 1758, his amiable and excellent father
died, and (a striking testimony both to his own and his son's early
worth) Charles was unanimously chosen to be his father's successor in the
curacy and lectureship of St John's. There he laboured for a time,
according to some statements, with much punctuality, energy, and
acceptance. After "The Rosciad" had established his name, he sold ten of
the sermons he had preached in St John's to a bookseller for L250. We
have not read them; but Dr Kippis has pronounced them utterly unworthy of
their author's fame--without a single gleam of his poetic fire--so poor,
indeed, that he supposes that they were borrowed from some dull elderly
divine, if not from Churchill's own father. This reminds us of a story
which was lately communicated to us about the famous William Godwin. He,
too, succeeded his father in his pastoral charge. Tinged, however,
already with heterodox views, he was by no means so popular as his father
had been. His own sermons were exceedingly cold and dry, but he possessed
a chestful of his father's, and used to read them frequently, by way of
grateful change to his hearers. The sermons of the elder Godwin were
recognised by the orthodoxy of their sentiment, and the dinginess of
their colour, and were much relished; and so long as the stock lasted,
the future author of "Caleb Williams" commanded a tolerable audience; but
so soon as he had read them all, and resumed his own lucubrations, his