with any friend who readily fell-in with his schemes, he was adjusting the print, forming the advertisements, and regulating the difpersion of his new edition, which he really intended fome time to publifh, and which, as long as experience had fhewn him the impoffibility of printing the volume together, he at last determined to divide into weekly or monthly numbers, that the profits of the first might fupply the expences of the

next.

Thus he spent his time in mean expedients and tormenting suspense, living for the greatest part in the fear of prosecutions from his creditors, and confequently skulking in obfcure parts of the town, of which he was no ftranger to the remoteft corners. But wherever he came, his addrefs fecured him friends, whom his neceffities foon alienated; fo that he had perhaps a more numerous acquaintance than any man ever before attained, there being scarcely any person eminent on any account to whom he was not known, or whose character he was not in fome degree able to delineate.

To the acquifition of this extenfive ac quaintance every circumftance of his life contributed. He excelled in the arts of converfation, and therefore willingly practifed them; He had feldom any home, or even a lodging in which he could be private; and therefore was driven into public-houfes for the common conveniences of life and fupports of nature, He was always ready to comply with every invitation, having no employment to withhold him, and often no money to provide for himself; and by dining with one company, he never failed of obtaining an introduction into another.

Thus diffipated was his life, and thus cafual his fubfiftence; yet did not the distraction of his views hinder him from reflection, nor the uncertainty of his condition deprefs his gaiety. When he had wandered about with out any fortunate adventure by which he was led into a tavern, he fometimes retired into the fields, and was able to employ his mind in study, or amuse it with pleasing imaginations; and feldom appeared to be melancholy, but when some fudden misfortune had just fallen upon him, and even then in a few moments

he

he would disentangle himself from his perplexity, adopt the subject of conversation, and apply his mind wholly to the objects that others prefented to it.

This life, unhappy as it may be already imagined, was yet imbittered, in 1738, with new calamities. The death of the Queen deprived him of all the profpects of preferment with which he fo long entertained his imagination; and, as Sir Robert Walpole had before given him reason to believe that he never intended the performance of his promise, he was now abandoned again to fortune,

He was however, at that time, fupported by a friend; and as it was not his cuftom to look out for diftant calamities, or to feel any other pain than that which forced itself upon his fenfes, he was not much afflicted at his lofs, and perhaps comforted himself that his pension would be now continued without the annual tribute of a panegyric.

Another expectation contributed likewise to fupport him he had taken a refolution to write a fecond tragedy upon the ftory of Sir

Thomas

Thomas Overbury, in which he preserved a few lines of his former play, but made a total alteration of the plan, added new incidents, and introduced new characters; fo that it was a new tragedy, not a revival of the former.

Many of his friends blamed him for not making choice of another fubject; but, in vindication of himself, he afferted, that it was not eafy to find a better; and that he thought it his intereft to extinguish the memory of the first tragedy, which he could only do by writing one lefs defective upon the fame story; by which he should entirely defeat the artifice of the booksellers, who, after the death of any author of reputation, are always induftrious to fwell his works, by uniting his worst productions with his best.

In the execution of this fcheme, however, he proceeded but flowly, and probably only employed himself upon it when he could find no other amusement; but he pleafed himself with counting the profits, and perhaps imagined, that the theatrical reputation which he was about to acquire, would be equivalent to

all that he had loft by the death of his tronefs.

pa

He did not, in confidence of his approaching riches, neglect the measures proper to secure the continuance of his pension, though fome of his favourers thought him culpable for omitting to write on her death; but on her birth-day next year, he gave a proof of the folidity of his judgement, and the power of his genius. He knew that the track of elegy had been fo long beaten, that it was impoffible to travel in it without treading in the footsteps of those who had gone before him; and that therefore it was necessary, that he might distinguish himself from the herd of encomiafts, to find out fome new walk of funeral panegyric.

This difficult tafk he performed in fuch a manner, that his poem may be justly ranked among 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 very difficult to connect in one view, but which he

has