Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/104

94 anſwered, ‘That if he had never been any thing but a private gentleman, in all probability, he had never been troubled with that viſit.’

Mr. Voltaire upon this occaſion obſerves, that he was not a little diſguſted with ſo unſeaſonable a piece of vanity:——This was indeed the higheſt inſtance of it, that perhaps can be produced. A man who owed to his wit and writings the reputation, as well as the fortune, he acquired, pretending to divert himſelf of human nature to ſuch a degree, as to have no conſciouſneſs of his own merit, was the moſt abſurd piece of vanity that ever entered into the heart of man; and of all vanity, that is the greateſt which maſks itſelf under the appearance of the oppoſite quality.

Towards the cloſe of his life, he was much troubled with the gout; and for this reaſon, in the ſummer of the year 1728, he made a tour to Bath, for the benefit of the waters, where he had the misfortune to be overturned in his chariot, from which time he complained of a pain in his ſide, which was ſuppoſed to ariſe from ſome inward bruiſe. Upon his return to London, he perceived his health gradually decline, which he bore with fortitude and reſignation.

On January the 19th, 1728–9, he yielded his laſt breath, about five o’clock in the morning, at his houſe in Surrey-ſtreet in the Strand, in the fifty-ſeventh year of his age. On the ſunday following, January 26, his corpſe lay in ſtate in the Jeruſalem-Chamber, from whence the ſame evening, between the hours of nine and ten, it was carried with great decency and ſolemnity to Henry the VIIth’s Chapel; and after the funeral ſervice was performed, it was interred in the Abbey. The pall was ſupported by the duke of Bridgewater, earl of Godolphin, lord Cobham, lord ,