To ripen'd age Clive liv'd renown'd,
With lacks enrich'd, with honours crown'd,
His valour's well-earn'd meed;
Too long, alas! he lived to hate
His envied lot, and died [22] too late,
From life's oppression freed.
An early death was Elliott's [23] doom;
I saw his opening virtues bloom,
And manly sense unfold,
Too soon to fade! I bade the stone
Record his name 'midst Hordes unknown,
Unknowing what it told.
To thee, perhaps, the fates may give—
I wish they may—in health to live,
Herds, flocks, and fruitful fields,
Thy vacant hours in mirth to shine;
With these, the muse already thine
Her present bounties yields.
For me, O Shore! I only claim
To merit, not to seek for fame,
The good and just to please,
A state above the fear of want,
Domestic love, Heaven's choicest grant,
Health, leisure, peace, and ease.
[Footnote 22: Lord Clive committed suicide 1774.]
[Footnote 23: Mr. Elliott died in October, 1778, on his way to Nangpore, the capital of Moodagees Boofla's dominions, being deputed on an embassy to that prince by the Governor-General and Council; a monument was erected to his memory on the spot where he was buried, and the Marattas have since built a town there, called Elliott Gunge, or Elliott's Town.]
EPITAPH ON DR. JOHNSON.
Here lies poor Johnson. Reader, have a care,
Tread lightly, lest you rouse a sleeping bear:
Religious, moral, generous, and humane
He was, but self-sufficient, rude, and vain;
Ill-bred and overbearing in dispute,
A scholar and a Christian—yet a brute.
Would you know all his wisdom and his folly,
His actions, sayings, mirth, and melancholy?
Boswell and Thrale, retailers of his wit,
Will tell you how he wrote, and talked, and cough'd, and spit.