Sir Richard wished well to the interests of religion, and as he imagined that Union would promote it, he had some thoughts of proposing it at court, but the times were unfavourable. The Presbyterians had lately appeared active against the rebels, and were not to be disobliged; but such is now the good understanding between the episcopal and presbyterian parties, that a few concessions on the one side, and not many advances on the other, possibly might produce an amicable coalition, as it is chiefly in form, rather than in articles of religion, in which they differ.
In the year 1715 he published an account of the state of the Roman Catholic Religion throughout the World, translated from an Italian manuscript, with a dedication to the Pope, giving him a very particular account of the state of religion amongst the Protestants, and several other matters of importance, relating to Great-Britain; but this dedication is supposed to be written by another very eminent hand, more conversant in subjects of that nature than Sir Richard.
The same year our author published a Letter from the earl of Marr to the king, before his majesty's arrival in England; with some remarks on my lord's subsequent conduct; and the year following a second volume of the Englishman, and in 1718 an account of a Fish-Pool, which was a project of his for bringing fish to market alive, for which he obtained a patent.
In 1719 he published a pamphlet called the Spinster, and a Letter to the Earl of Oxford, concerning the Bill of Peerage, which bill he opposed in the House of Commons. Some time after, he wrote against the South-Sea-Scheme; his Crisis of posterity; and another piece intitled, A Nation a Family; and on Saturday January the 2d, 1719-20, he began a paper called the Theatre, during the course of which his patent of governor of the Royal Company of Comedians, being suspended by his majesty, he published, The State of the Case.
In the year 1722, he brought his Conscious Lovers on the stage, with prodigious success. This is the last and most finished of all Sir Richard's Comedies, and 'tis doubtful if there is upon the stage, any more instructing; that tends to convey a finer moral, or is better conducted in its design. We have already observed, that it is impossible to witness the tender scenes of this Comedy without emotion; that is, no man of feeling and humanity, who has experienced the délicate solicitudes of love and affection, can do it. Sir Richard has told us, that when one of the players told Mr. Wilks, that there was a General weeping for Indiana; he politely observed, that he would not fight the worse for that; and indeed what a noble school of morality would the stage be, if all those who write for it would observe such delicate chastity; they would then inforce an honourable and virtuous deportment, by the most insinuating and easy means; they would so allure the audience by the amiable form of goodness represented in her native loveliness, that he who could resist her charms, must be something more than wicked.
When Sir Richard finished this Comedy, the parts of Tom and Phillis were not then in it: He read it to Mr. Cibber, who candidly told him, that though he liked his play upon the whole, both in the cast of the characters and execution of them; yet, that it was rather too grave for an English audience, who want generally to laugh at a Comedy, and without which in their opinion, the end is not answered. Mr. Cibber then proposed the addition of some comic characters, with which Sir Richard agreed, and saw the propriety and force of the observation. This comedy (at Sir Richard's request) received many additions from, and were greatly improved by Mr. Cibber.—Our author dedicated this work to the king, who made him a present of 500 l.
Some years before his death, he grew paralytic, and retired to his seat at Langunner, near Caermarthen in Wales, where he died September the 1st, 1729; and was privately interred according to his own desire, in the church of Caermarthen.
Besides his writings above-mentionened, he began on Saturday the 17th of December, a weekly paper in quarto, called the Town-Talk, in a letter to a lady in the country; and another, intitled the Tea-Table: He had likewise planned a comedy which he intended to call The School of Action.—As Sir Richard was beloved when living, so his loss was sincerely regretted at his death. He was a man of undissembled, and extensive benevolence; a friend to the friendless, and as far as his circumstances would permit, the father of every orphan: His works are chaste, and manly, he himself admired virtue, and he drew her as lovely as she is: of his works it may be said, as Sir George Lyttleton in his prologue to Coriolanus observes of Thomson, that there are not in them
One corrupted, one immoral thought,
A line which dying he could wish to blot.
He was a stranger to the most distant appearance of envy or malevolence, never jealous of any man's growing reputation, and so far from arrogating any praise to himself, from his conjunction with Mr. Addison, that he was the first who desired him to distinguish his papers in the Spectator, and after the death of that great man was a faithful executor of his fame, notwithstanding an aspersion which Mr. Tickell was so unjust to throw upon him. Sir Richard's greatest error was want of oeconomy, as appears from the two following instances related by the elegant writer of Mr. Savage's Life, to whom that gentleman communicated them.