Or con the pages of his gaping Day,[1]
Where all his former fame was thrown away,
Where all but barren labour was forgot,
And the vain stiffness of a lettered Scot;
Let them with Armstrong pass the term of light,
But not one hour of darkness ; when the night
Suspends this mortal coil, when memory wakes,
When for our past misdoings conscience takes
A deep revenge, when by reflection led
She draws his curtains, and looks comfort dead,
Let every muse be gone; in vain he turns,
And tries to pray for sleep; an Ætna. burns,
A more than Ætna. in his coward breast,
And guilt, with vengeance armed, forbids to rest;
Though soft as plumage from young Zephyr's wing
His couch seems hard, and no relief can bring;
Ingratitude hath planted daggers there,
No good man can deserve, no brave man bear.
We have no hesitation in saying that this severe satire was not justified either by the offence which called it forth, or by the circumstances on which it was founded. Wilkes, the associate of Churchill, had lent money to Armstrong on some occasion of peculiar distress. When the attacks of Wilkes upon Scotland led to animosities between the two friends, it was not to be expected that the recollection of a former obligation was necessarily to tie up the natural feelings of Dr Armstrong, and induce him to submit rather to the certain charge of meanness of spirit, than the possible imputation of ingratitude. Neither could Wilkes have fairly expected that the natural course of the quarrel was to be stayed by such a submission on the part of his former friend. It would have been equally mean for the obliged party to have tendered, and for the obliging party to have accepted such a submission. There can be no doubt, therefore, that Dr Armstrong, in giving way to resentment against Wilkes, was chargeable, properly, with no blame except that of giving way to resentment; and if it is to be supposed, from the character of the poet in respect of irritability, that the resentment would have taken place whether there had been a debt of kindness standing undischarged between the parties or not, we cannot really see how this contingent circumstance can enhance his offence.
There is unfortunately too great reason to suppose, that, if the obligation tended to increase the blame of either party, it was that of Wilkes, who, from almost incontestable evidence, appears to have made a most ungenerous use of the advantage he had acquired over his former friend. Not only must he bear a portion of the guilt of Chin-chill's satire, which could have only been written as s transcript of his feelings, and with his sanction, but he stands almost certainly guilty of a still more direct and scurrilous attack upon Dr Armstrong, which appeared in a much more insidious form. This was a series of articles in the well known Public Advertiser, commencing with a letter signed Dies, which appeared to proceed from an enemy of the patriot, but, in the opinion of Dr Armstrong, was written by the patriot himself:
"He [Wilkes]," says this writer, "always took more delight in exposing his friends than in hurting his enemies. I am assured that a very worthy and ingenious friend of this impostor trusted him with a jeu d'esprit of a poem, incorrect indeed, but which bore every mark of a true, though ungoverned genius. This poem, rough as it was, he carried to A. Millar, late bookseller in the Strand.
- ↑ This poem was full of large hiatus supplied by asterisks.
