published, a poem calculated to please the learned, rather than the
vulgar, and with respect to which he had observed the rule of the _nonum
prematur in annum_. To The World, the periodical paper undertaken soon
after by Moore, and continued for four years, he contributed twenty-one
numbers. Though determined against taking an active part in public
affairs, yet he shewed himself to be far from indifferent to the
interests of his country. Her maritime glory more peculiarly engaged his
attention.

Anson, Boscawen, and indeed nearly all the distinguished seamen of his
day, were among his intimates or acquaintance; and he assisted some of
the principal navigators in drawing up the relations which they gave to
the world of their discoveries. In 1761, he was prompted by his
apprehensions, that the nation was not sufficiently on her guard against
the endeavours making by the French to deprive her of her possessions in
the East, to publish a History of the War upon the Coast of Coromandel.
The great work undertaken by Mr. Orme prevented him from pursuing the
subject.

Continuing thus to pass his days in the enjoyment of domestic happiness
and learned ease, surrounded by a train of menials grown grey in his
service, exercising the rites of hospitality with uniform cheerfulness,
and performing the duties of religion with exemplary punctuality,
respected by the good and admired by the ingenious, he reached his
eighty-third year with little inconvenience from the usual infirmities
of age. His faculties then declining, he was dismissed by a gradual
exhaustion of his natural powers, and resigning his breath without a
sigh on the seventeenth of September, 1802--

--Like ripe fruit he dropp'd
Into his mother's lap ...
...for death mature.

Having always lived in an union of the utmost tenderness with his
family, he exhibited a pleasing instance of the "ruling passion strong
in death." "Having passed," says his son, "a considerable time in a sort
of doze, from which it was thought he had hardly strength to revive, he
awoke, and upon seeing me, feebly articulated, 'How do the dear people
do?' When I answered that they were well; with a smile upon his
countenance, and an increased energy of voice, he replied, 'I thank
God;' and then reposed his head upon his pillow, and spoke no more."

He was buried at Twickenham, where, on inquiring a few years ago, I
found that no monument had been raised to his memory.

He left behind