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Excerpt from The Rosciad and the Apology It was natural for him therefore to cast about for some means of release from a profession to which he bore no love, and for which he felt that he had no vocation; and, as was almost inevitable, it was to literature that he turned. His first effort, a poem in Hudibrastic verse, entitled T be Bard, was evidently a very poor production, and no bookseller would have anything to do with it; but in his second he struck the vein which he afterwards worked with such success. This second production was a satire, le Conclave, aimed at the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, which the booksellers would have eagerly published, but for the fear of a prosecution for libel. From the booksellers' appreciation of his work, and from their fear of its legal consequences, Churchill probably derived equal comfort. He now knew that he could write verses which were thought good enough to publish, and powerful enough to be dangerous; so, before making his third attempt, he no doubt considered well what topic he should choose. There was much to tempt him to take the stage as a subject. His friend, Robert Lloyd, had just made a great hit with a poem called T be Actor, and Churchill probably felt that, if the subject were of such interest that the gentle satire of Lloyd could make a success with it, the sensation would be terrific when his own whip of scorpions was applied. Then again the actors were safe game. Their position made them the victims of every rude ill-conditioned fellow, who, whether in the theatre itself, in the news sheets, or in a pamphlet, chose to vent his spleen on them. If an actor attempted to retaliate it was always easy to get up a party of disorderly fellows who should cause a riot in the theatre, pelt the offending player of? The stage, and compel the manager to dismiss him from his employment. We may do Churchill the justice to believe that the helplessness of his proposed quarry was no recommendation to him, but he must have felt that the booksellers would not be likely to be influenced by fear of prosecution from a class which was considered fair game for every libeller. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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