ly ordered to Lisbon, he was there
received with so much distinction, that it would seem as if the
Portuguese had been willing to make some amends for their neglect of
Camoens, by the deference which they shewed his translator. Prince John,
the uncle to the Queen, was ready on the Quay to welcome him at landing;
and during a residence of more than six months he was gratified by the
attentions of the principal men of the country. At the first institution
of the Royal Academy at Lisbon, he was enrolled one of the Members. Here
he composed Almada Hill, an epistle from Lisbon, which was published in
the next year; and designing to write a History of Portugal, he brought
together some materials for that purpose.

When he had returned to England, he was so much enriched by his agency
for the disposal of the prizes which had been made during the cruise,
and by his own portion of the prize-money, that he was enabled to
discharge honourably the claims which his creditors still had on him,
and to settle himself with a prospect of independence and ease. He
accordingly married Mary, the daughter of Mr. Robert Tompkins, of
Forrest-hill, and took a house at Wheatley, a little village about five
miles from Oxford. Some interruption to his tranquillity occurred from
the failure of a banker, with whom his agency had connected him, and
from a chancery suit, in which he too hastily engaged to secure a part
of his wife's fortune. He then resumed his intention of publishing his
poems by subscription, and continued still to exercise his pen. His
remaining productions were a tract, entitled The Prophecy of Queen Emma,
an ancient Ballad, &c., with Hints towards a Vindication of the
Authenticity of the Poems of Ossian and Rowley (in 1782), and some
essays, called Fragments of Leo, and some reviews of books, both which
he contributed to the European Magazine. He died after a short illness,
on the 25th of October, 1788, at Forrest-hill, while on a visit at the
house of his father-in-law; and was buried at that place. He left one
son, who was an extra-clerk in the India House, in 1806, when the Life
of Mickle was written by the Rev. John Sim, a friend on whom he enjoined
that task, and who, I doubt not, has performed it with fidelity.

Mickle was a man of strong natural powers, which he had not always
properly under controul. When he is satisfied to describe with little
apparent effort what he has himself felt or conceived, as in his ballads
and