His wife, with
whom, after the first year, he never seems to have been happy, instead of
checking, outran her husband in extravagance and imprudence. He got
deeply involved in debt, and was repeatedly in danger of imprisonment,
till Dr Lloyd, his friend's father, nobly stept forward to his relief,
persuaded his creditors to accept five shillings in the pound, and
himself lent what was required to complete the sum. It is said that, when
afterwards Churchill had made money by the sale of his poems, he
voluntarily paid the whole of the original debt.
Along with the new love of indulgence, there had arisen in his bosom the
old love of verse. Stimulated by intercourse with Lloyd, Colman, B.
Thornton, and other wits of the period, he had written a poem, in
Hudibrastic rhyme, entitled "The Bard." This he offered to one Waller, a
bookseller in Fleet Street, who rejected it with scorn. In this feeling
Churchill seems afterwards to have shared, as he never would consent to
its publication. Not at all discouraged, he sat down and wrote a satire
entitled "The Conclave," directed against the Dean and Chapter of
Westminster,--Dr Zachary Pearce, a favourite of Churchill's ire, being
then Dean.
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