Charles Churchill (satirist)

Charles Churchill (February 1731 – November 4, 1764) was an English poet and satirist.

Quotes

Who to patch up his fame, or fill his purse,
Still pilfers wretched plans, and makes them worse;
Like gypsies, lest the stolen brat be known,
Defacing first, then claiming for his own.
- Apology addressed to the Critical Reviewers (1761), line 232, comparable with: "Steal! to be sure they may; and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children,—disguise them to make 'em pass for their own", Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Critic, act i. sc. i

Men the most infamous are fond of fame,
And those who fear not guilt yet start at shame.
- The Author (1763), line 233

Genius is of no country; her pure ray
Spreads all abroad, as general as the day.
- line 207

Fashion—a word which knaves and fools may use,
Their knavery and folly to excuse.
To copy beauties, forfeits all pretence
To fame—to copy faults, is want of sense.
- line 455

Not without Art, but yet to Nature true,
She charms the town with humour just, yet new.
- line 699

But, spite of all the criticising elves,
Those who would make us feel—must feel themselves.
- line 961; comparable with: "Si vis me flere, dolendum est/ Primum ipsi tibi" (translated as "If you wish me to weep, you yourself must first feel grief"), Horace, Ars Poetica, v. 102

The two extremes appear like man and wife,
Coupled together for the sake of strife.
- line 1005

Where he falls short, 'tis Nature's fault alone;
Where he succeeds, the merit's all his own.
- line 1025

When foes insult, and prudent friends dispense,
In pity's strains, the worst of insolence,
Oft with thee, Lloyd, I steal an hour from grief,
And in thy social converse find relief.
- line 1

No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
To tax our labours and excise our brains.
- line 271

Keep up appearances; there lies the test.
The world will give thee credit for the rest.
- line 311

There webs were spread of more than common size,
And half-starved spiders prey’d on half-starved flies.
- line 327

Amongst the sons of men how few are known
Who dare be just to merit not their own?
- line 1

Thy danger chiefly lies in acting well;
No crime's so great as daring to excel.
- line 51

When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,
Men will believe, because they love the lie;
But Truth herself, if clouded with a frown,
Must have some solemn proof to pass her down.
- line 289

With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroy'd by thought:
Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out our powers, and leaves a blank behind.
- line 645

And adepts in the speaking trade
Keep a cough by them ready made.
- Book II, line 545

Why should we fear? and what? The laws?
They all are arm'd in Virtue's cause;
And aiming at the self-same end,
Satire is always Virtue's friend.
- Book III, line 943

Drawn by Conceit from Reason's plan,
How vain is that poor creature, Man!
How pleased is every paltry elf
To prate about that thing, himself.
- Book III, line 955

Within the brain's most secret cells
A certain Lord Chief Justice dwells,
Of sovereign power, whom, one and all,
With common voice, we Reason call.
- Book IV, line 125

Be England what she will,
With all her faults she is my country still.
- line 27; comparable with: "England, with all thy faults I love thee still, My country!", William Cowper, The Task, book ii. The Timepiece, line 206

Wherever waves can roll, and winds can blow.
- line 38; comparable with: "Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam", Lord Byron, The Corsair, canto i. stanza 1

As the law does think fit
No butchers shall on juries sit.
- This quote, sometimes erroneously cited as from Churchill's The Ghost, is from canto II of Butler's Ghost; or, Hudibras. The Fourth Part (1682), a continuation by Thomas d'Urfey of Hudibras by Samuel Butler, the three parts of which were published in 1663, 1664 and 1678. In Butler's Ghost (which appeared two years after Butler's death), the lines are slightly different: "But as the law does think it fit,/No butchers shall in juries sit."