The stream of life scarce trembling through the vein:
More than half kill'd by honest truths which fell,
Through thy own fault, from men who wish'd thee well;
Canst thou e'en thus thy thoughts to vengeance give,
And dead to all things else, to malice live?
Hence, dotard, to thy closet; shut thee in,
By deep repentance wash away thy sin;
From haunts of men, to shame and sorrow fly,
And on the verge of death learn how to die."
That a man in the vigour of life—for Churchill was not much more than thirty years old—should draw so pitiable a picture of age and decrepitude, and then attack that age and decrepitude with a barbarity so savage, is horrible! But the baleful spirit of party overthrows the barriers of truth, eradicates philanthropy, and severs those social, I had almost said sacred, bonds which ought to unite and attach men of genius to each other. Had Churchill felt his own beautiful apostrophe, he would have blotted the lines with his tears: