(643) The Duke of Argyll, in the latter part of his life, was often melancholy and disordered in his understanding. After this transaction, and it is supposed he had gone still farther, he could with difficulty be brought even to write his name. The marriage of his eldest daughter with the Earl of Dalkeith was deferred for some time, because the duke could not be prevailed upon to sign the writings.
269 Letter 75 To Sir Horace Mann.
On the Death of Richard West, Esq.(644)
While surfeited with life, each hoary knave
Grows, here, immortal, and eludes the grave,
Thy virtues immaturely met their fate,
Cramp'd in the limit of too short a date!
Thy mind, not exercised so oft in vain,
In health was gentle, and composed in pain:
successive trials still refined thy soul,
And plastic Patience perfected the whole.
A friendly aspect, not suborn'd by art;
An eye, which look'd the meaning of thy heart;
A tongue, With simple truth and freedom fraught,
The faithful index of thy honest thought.
Thy pen disdain'd to seek the servile ways
Of partial censure, and more partial praise;
Through every tongue it flowed in nervous ease,
With sense to Polish , and With wit to please.
No lurking venom from thy pencil fell;
Thine was the kindest satire, living well:
The vain, the loose, the base, might blush to see
In what thou wert, what they themselves should be,
Let me not charge on Providence a crime,
Who snatch'd thee, blooming, to a better clime,
To raise those virtues to a higher sphere:
Virtues! which only could have starved thee here;
A Receipt To Make A Lord.
Occasioned by a late report of a promotion.(645)