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she herself was one." Twenty-two years after wards this very respectable lady, who was then in her eightieth year, erected a monument at Tichmarsh, in honour of our poet and his parents, on which these circumstances so much to his honour are recorded.

He died in the profession of the Roman Catholick religion, which he had embraced about fifteen years before. From an ambiguous passage in

THE GUARDIAN, it has been suggested, that this great poet did not believe in a future state; but

"My prayers shall be, while this short life endures, "These may go hand in hand, with you and yours; "Till faith hereafter is in vision drown'd, "And practice is with endless glory crown'd."

These verses, as well as the introductory account of the occasion that gave rise to them, are copied from an original paper now before me, written in an elegant female hand (probably that of one of her daughters); which was found in the cabinet of Mrs. Mary Walcot, late wife of William Walcot, of Oundle, M. D. and grand-daughter to Mrs. Elizabeth Creed; being the daughter of John Creed, Esq., her brave son abovementioned, who died at Oundle, Nov. 21, 1751, in his seventy-third year. Part of this paper having been worn away by time, I have supplied by conjecture the few words enclosed within crotchets, which appear wanting. The word within crotchets in the third verse, or some other word of two syllables, seems to have been inadvertently omitted in the original transcript.

See APPENDIX, No. IV.

The passage alluded to in THE GUARDIAN, No. 39, is as follows:

"It must be my business to prevent all pretenders in

the excellent author of the paper alluded to, Bishop Berkeley, seems to have fallen into a slight

this kind [men of parts, who oppose the received opinions of Christians] from hurting the ignorant and unwary. In order to this, I communicated [in No. 27, also written by Bishop Berkeley,] an intelligence which I received, of a gentleman's appearing very sorry that he was not well during a late fit of sickness, contrary to his own doctrine, which obliged him to be merry upon that occasion, except he was sure of recovering. Upon this advice to the world, the following advertisement got a place in THE POSTBOY:

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Whereas in the paper called THE GUARDIAN, of Saturday the 11th of April instant, a corollary reflection ⚫ was made on Monsieur D[eslandes], a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, author of a book lately published, entitled

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A Philological Essay, or Reflections on the death of Free-thinkers, with the characters of the most eminent persons of both sexes, ancient and modern, that died pleasantly and unconcerned, &c. Sold by J. Baker, in Paternoster-Row:

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Suggesting as if that gentleman, now in London, was very much out of humour in a late fit of sickness, till he • was in a fair way of recovery. This is to assure the 'publick, that the said gentleman never expressed the ⚫ least concern at the approach of death, but expected the fatal minute with the most heroical and philosophical resignation; of which a copy of verses he writ in the serene intervals of his distemper, is an invincible proof.'

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"All that I contend for is, that this gentleman was out of humour when he was sick; and the Advertiser, to confute me, says, that in the serene intervals of his distemper, that is, when he was not sick, he writ verses. shall not retract my advertisement, till I see those verses,

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errour, by confounding Lucretius and his trans lator; and to have made Dryden accountable for

and I'll choose what to believe then, except they are underwritten by his Nurse, nor then neither, except she is an housekeeper. I must tie this gentleman close to the argument; for if he had not actually his fit upon him, there is nothing courageous in the thing, nor does it make for his purpose, nor are they heroick verses.

"The point of being merry at the hour of death is a matter that ought to be settled by Divines; but the pub. lisher of the Philological Essay produces his chief authorities from Lucretius, the Earl of Rochester, and Mr. JOHN DRYDEN, who were gentlemen that did not think themselves obliged to prove all they said, or else proved their assertions by saying or swearing they were all fools that believed in the contrary. If it be absolutely neces that a man should be facetious at his death, it would be very well, if these gentlemen, Monsieur D[eslandes] and Mr. B[oyer], would repent betimes, and not trust to a death-bed ingenuity. By what has appeared hitherto, they have only raised our longing to see their posthumous works.

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"The author of Poeta rusticantis litteratum Otium is but a mere phraseologist; the philological publisher is but a translator; but I expected better usage from Mr. Abel Roper, [the publisher of THE POSTBOY,] who is an original."

I do not at this moment recollect by whom this passage is quoted, as a proof of our author's irreligion and levity in the hour of death; but the remarker, as well as the Bishop, were certainly under a misapprehension; for the only ground for such a charge, which is found in Deslandes' work, is, Dryden's version of certain passages of Lucretius being quoted in it.

André-Francois Boureau Deslandes was born in Pon

opinions with which he had no other concern than that of clothing them with English verse. Bishop Tanner, then a young man, residing chiefly at Oxford, also speaks of him very uncharitably. But these vague and unsupported censures must yield to his own declarations, confirmed by the general probity of his life," and the testimony of

dichery, in 1690, and came to London in 1713, where he was seized with the small pox. He in that year published in London his Litteratum Otium, in which he has very successfully imitated Catullus; and had previously printed at Paris-Reflexions sur les grands-hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant, the work here alluded to, which was translated by A. Boyer. He afterwards went to France, where he resided many years; and, after having published his Travels into England, (1717, 12mo.) L'Art de se desennuyer, and various works of a similar irreligious tendency with that reprobated in THE GUARDIAN, he died at Paris in 1757. His friends boasted that he persevered in infidelity to the last; as a proof of which they preserved the following despicable verses, written a short time before his death:

"Doux sommeil, dernier terme,

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Que le

sage attend sans effroi ;. "Je verrai d'un œil ferme

"Tout passer, tout s'enfuir de moi.”

In a letter, from which an extract will be found in a subsequent page.

9 In the Preface to TYRANNICK LOVE, 1670, having observed that he had been charged by some ignorant or malicious persons with profaneness and irreligion, for having produced the character of Maximin; after vindicating himself from this accusation, he adds-" This, reader, is what I owed to my just defence, and the due

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his pious kinswoman; from which it may be collected, that the fortitude and resignation which he displayed in his last moments were the effect of religious principles, a perfect conviction of the truths of Christianity, and an humble hope of be ing made partaker of a blessed immortality.

reverence of that religion which I profess, to which all men who desire to be esteemed good or honest, arc obliged. I have neither leisure nor occasion to write more largely on this subject, because I am already justi fied by the witness of my own conscience, which abhors the thought of such a crime; to which I ask leave to add my outward conversation, which shall never be justly taxed with the note of atheism or profaneness."

Again, in his Letter to Dennis, in March, 1693-4: "We poor poets militant (to use Mr. Cowley's expression,) are at the mercy of wretched scriblers; and when they cannot fasten upon our verses, they fall upon our morals, our principles of state and religion. For my principles of religion, I will not justify them to you: I know, yours are far different. For the same reason, İ shall say nothing of my principles of state. I believe you in yours follow the dictates of your reason, as I in mine do those of my conscience. If I thought myself in an errour, I would retract it. I am sure that I suffer for them; and Milton makes even the Devil say, that no creature is in love with pain.-For my morals betwixt man and man, I am not to be my own judge. I appeal to the world, if I have deceived or defrauded any man; and for my private conversation, they who see me every day can be the best witnesses, whether or no it be blameless and inoffensive. Hitherto I have no reason to complain that men of either party shun my company."

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