"I have feen that I was fometimes in "the wrong, but I did not err defigned

ly. I have endeavoured, in private "life, to do all the good in my power, "and never for a moment could in

"dulge malicious or unjust designs upon any person whatsoever."

"At another time he faid, "I muft "leave my foul in the same state it was "in before this illness; I find this a very "inconvenient time for folicitude about any thing."

66

"On the evening, when the fymp"toms of death came on, he said, "I "fhall die; but it will not be your "fault." When lord and lady Valentia "came to fee his lordship, he gave "them his folemn benediction, and

"faid, "Be good, be virtuous, my lord; 86 you must come to this." Thus he "continued giving his dying benedic❝tion to all around him. On Monday "morning a lucid interval gave some "fmall hopes, but thefe vanifhed in the "evening; and he continued dying, "but with very little uneafiness, till "Tucfday morning, August 22, when "between feven and eight o'clock he "expired, almoft without a groan."

His lordship was buried at Hagley; and the following infcription is cut on the fide of his lady's monument: "This unadorned ftone was placed here By the particular defire and exprefs "directions of the late Right Honourable

"GEORGE Lord LYTTELTON,

"Who died Auguft 22, 1773, aged 64."

Lord

PROLOGUE TO SOPHONIS BA,

BY POPE AND MALLET.

WHEN Learning, after the long Gothic night, Fair, o'er the Western world, renew'd its light, With arts arifing, Sophonifba rofe:

The Tragic Mufe, returning, wept her woes. With her th' Italian scene first learn'd to glow; And the first tears for her were taught to flow. Her charms the Gallic Mufes next inspir❜d : Corneille himself faw, wonder'd, and was fir'd.

What foreign theatres with pride have shewn, Britain, by jufter title, makes her own. When Freedom is the cause, 'tis hers to fight; And hers, when Freedom is the theme, to write. For this a British Author bids again

The heroine rife, to grace the British scene.

Here,

Here, as in life, fhe breathes her genuine flame: She asks, what bofom has not felt the fame? Afks of the British Youth-Is filence there? She dares to afk it of the British Fair.

To-night, our home-fpun author would be true, At once, to nature, hiftory, and you. Well-pleas'd to give our neighbours due applause, He owns their learning, but difdains their laws. Not to his patient touch, or happy flame, 'Tis to his British heart he trufts for fame. If France excel him in one free-born thought, The man, as well as poet, is in fault.

Nature! informer of the poet's art,

Whofe force alone can raise or melt the heart, Thou art his guide; each paflion, every line, Whate'er he draws to pleafe, muft all be thine, Be thou his judge: in every candid breast, Thy filent whifper is the facred test.

OF

be well remembered as a man

efteemed and careffed by the elegant and

great, I was at firft able to obtain no other memorials than fuch as are fupplied by a book called Cibber's Lives of the Poets; of which I take this opportu nity to testify that it was not written,

nor,

I believe, ever seen, by either of the Cibbers; but was the work of Robert Shiels, a native of Scotland, a man of very acute understanding, though with