Struck with thy fall, we shed a general tear,
With humble grief, inscribe one artless stone,
And from thy matchless honours date our own."
His sword is preserved in the United Service Museum, and was engraved about two years since in the Illustrated London News. An old professed portrait of him dangles as the sign of a beer-shop in Westerham. Wolfe was ardently attached to Colonel Barré, whose portrait is introduced in West's celebrated picture of the Death of Wolfe; another head in the picture is, I have been told, a likeness of a person who had been captured by the Indians, and was about to be scalped, when his life was saved by the intercession of a chief Wolfe had formerly pardoned.
Wolfe was the youngest general ever entrusted with such a responsible command; but his bravery, his great humanity, his love to his troops, and above all, his glorious death, will render his name immortal in the page of British history.
H. G. D.
The inclosed lines were given to me some years since by an old lady, who stated that they came into her possession through some relatives of the lady to whom they were addressed. I now much regret that I did not hear (or if I heard it have forgotten) the lady's name. Perhaps in the last letter of the series now in the hands of Ʒ , some allusion may be found to one in whom the parting hero felt so deep an interest; at all events the lines may be acceptable to Ʒ or others of your readers desirous for some further knowledge of the private life of this "faithful soldier." Might not the parish register of Westerham in Kent, the birthplace of Wolfe, possibly supply his mother's maiden name, or some other particular as to his family connexions? His father, also General Wolfe, may perhaps have distinguished himself in "the 45," but James Wolfe was then barely nineteen years of age, and I have never met with any allusion to his taking part in that campaign. His appointment to the American service is said to have been the result of his display of military talent in Germany.
LINES WRITTEN AT PORTSMOUTH BY GENERAL
WOLFE, AND PRESENTED TO HIS LADY THE
EVENING BEFORE HIS EMBARKATION FOR THE
SIEGE OF QUEBEC.
"At length too soon, dear creature,
Receive my fond adieu,