hearers melted away, and he moved off to become a literateur in London.
Perhaps Churchill, in like manner, may have found that general audiences
like plain sense better than poetry. That he had ever much real piety or
zeal has been gravely doubted, and we share in the doubts. But although
he himself speaks slightingly, in one of his latter poems, of his
ministerial labours, he at least played his part with outward decorum.
His great objection to the office was still his small salary, which
amounted to scarcely L100 per annum. This compelled him to resume the
occupation of a tutor, first to the young ladies attending a
boarding-school in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, and then to several young
gentlemen who were prosecuting the study of the classics.

When about twenty-seven years of age, he renewed his acquaintance with
Robert Lloyd, the son of Dr Lloyd, one of the masters of Westminster
School, and who had been an early chum of Churchill's. This young man had
discovered very promising abilities, alike at Westminster and at
Cambridge, and had been appointed usher in his father's seminary; but,
sick of the drudgery, and infected with a fierce thirst both for fame and
pleasure, had flung himself upon the literary arena. Although far
inferior to Churchill in genius, and indeed little better than a clever
copyist of his manner, he exerted a very pernicious influence on his
friend's conduct. He borrowed inspiration from Churchill, and gave him
infamy in exchange. The poet could do nothing by halves. Along with
Lloyd, he rushed into a wild career of dissipation. He became a nightly
frequenter of the theatres, taverns, and worse haunts. His wife, with
whom, after the first year, he never seems to have been happy, instead of
checking, outran her husband in extravagance and imprudence. He got
deeply involved in debt, and was repeatedly in danger of imprisonment,
till Dr Lloyd, his friend's father, nobly stept forward to his relief,
persuaded his creditors to accept five shillings in the pound, and