Time was, ere these degenerate days

Gift of Augustin Hamilton Parker, 1924 – *EC75.W1654.Zz797p

• Complete Image
• HOLLIS Catalog Entry

Great are his perils in this stormy time
Who rashly ventures on a sea of Rhime.

Charles Churchill (1731-1764). The Apology: Addressed to the Critical Reviewers, 6th ed.
(London, 1761).

The Critical Review misattributed the then unknown Churchill’s first published work, The Rosciad, a biting satire on the contemporary stage, to three established authors: George Colman the Elder, Robert Lloyd, and Bonnell Thornton.  In The Apology Churchill exacted his revenge on the Tory newspaper and its Scottish editor, Tobias Smollett. This annotated copy belonged to Horace Walpole, who wrote this post mortem in 1764: “Churchill the poet is dead – to the great joy of the ministry and the Scotch, and to the grief of very few indeed, I believe.”