cters, so that it was
a new tragedy, not a revival of the former. With the profits of this
scheme, when finished, he fed his imagination, but proceeded slowly in
it, and, probably, only employed himself upon it, when he could find no
other amusement. Upon the Queen's death it was expected of him, that he
should honour her memory with a funeral panegyric: He was thought
culpable for omitting it; but on her birth-day, next year, he gave a
proof of the power of genius and judgment. He knew that the track of
elegy had been so long beaten, that it was impossible to travel in it,
without treading the footsteps of those who had gone before him, and
therefore it was necessary that he might distinguish himself from the
herd of encomists, to find out some new walk of funeral panegyric.

This difficult task he performed in such a manner, that this poem may be
justly ranked the best of his own, and amongst the best pieces that the
death of Princes has produced. By transferring the mention of her death,
to her birth-day, he has formed a happy combination of topics, which any
other man would have thought it difficult to connect in one view; but
the relation between them appears natural; and it may be justly said,
that what no other man could have thought on, now seems scarcely
possible for any man to miss. In this poem, when he takes occasion to
mention the King, he modestly gives him a hint to continue his pension,
which, however, he did not receive at the usual time, and there was some
reason to think that it would be discontinued. He did not take those
methods of retrieving his interest, which were most likely to succeed,
for he went one day to Sir Robert Walpole's levee, and demanded the
reason of the distinction that was made between him and the other
pensioners of the Queen, with a degree of roughness which, perhaps,
determined him to withdraw, what had only been delayed. This last
misfortune he bore not only with decency, but cheerfulness, nor was his
gaiety clouded, even by this disappointment, though he was, in a short
time, reduced to the lowest degree of distress, and often wanted both
lodging and food. At this time he gave another instance of the
insurmountable obstinacy of his spirit. His cloaths were worn out, and
he received notice, that at a coffee-house some cloaths and linen were
left for him. The person who sent them did not, we believe, inform him
to whom he was to be obliged, that he might spare the perplexity of