close of his life, those whom his poems have delighted will read
with pain the following account, copied from the letters of his friend
Shenstone, by whom he was too much resembled.

"--Our old friend Somervile is dead! I did not imagine I could have been
so sorry as I find myself on this occasion: 'Sublatum quaerimus.' I can
now excuse all his foibles; impute them to age, and to distress of
circumstances: the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to
think on. For a man of high spirit, conscious of having, at least in one
production, generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by
wretches that are low in every sense; to be forced to drink himself into
pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind, is a
misery."

He died July 19,1742, and was buried at Wotton, near Henley on Arden.

His distresses need not be much pitied: his estate is said to have been
fifteen hundred a-year, which, by his death, devolved to lord Somervile,
of Scotland. His mother, indeed, who lived till ninety, had a jointure
of six hundred.

It is with regret that I find myself not better enabled to exhibit
memorials of a writer, who, at least, must be allowed to have set a good
example to men of his own class, by devoting part of his time to elegant
knowledge; and who has shown, by the subjects which his poetry has
adorned, that it is practicable to be at once a skilful sportsman, and a
man of letters.

Somervile has tried many modes of poetry; and though, perhaps, he has
not in any reached such excellence as to raise much envy, it may
commonly be said, at least, that "he writes very well for a gentleman."
His serious pieces are sometimes elevated, and his trifles are sometimes
elegant. In his verses to Addison, the couplet which mentions Clio is
written with the most exquisite delicacy of praise; it exhibits one of
those happy strokes that are seldom attained. In his odes to Marlborough
there are beautiful lines; but, in the second ode, he shows that he knew
little of his hero, when he talks of his private virtues. His subjects
are commonly such as require no great depth of thought, or energy of
expression. His fables are generally stale, and, therefore, excite no
curiosity. Of his favourite, the Two Springs, the fiction is unnatural,
and the moral inconsequential. In his tales there is too much
coarseness, with too little care of language, and not sufficient
rapidity of narration.

His great work i