To those who have derived entertainment or instruction from Mr. Somervile’s works, the information will be received with pain, that the latter part of his life did not pass without those embarrassments which attend a deranged state of pecuniary circumstances. Shenstone, who in this particular much resembled him, thus notices his lamentable catastrophe. “Our old friend Somervile is dead! I did not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find myself on this occasion. Sublatum quærimus. I can now excuse all his foibles; impute them to age, and to distress of circumstances: the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to think on. For a man of high spirit, conscious of having (at least in one production,) generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every sense; to be forced to drink himself into pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind, is a misery which I can well conceive; because I may, without vanity, esteem myself his equal in point of economy, and, consequently, ought to have an eye to his misfortunes.” Dr. Johnson says, “his distresses need not to be much pitied; his estate is said to have been fifteen hundred a year, which by his death devolved to Lord Somervile of Scotland. His mother, indeed, who lived till ninety, had a jointure of six hundred.” This remark is made with less consideration than might have been expected, from so close an observer of mankind. Such an estate, incumbered in such a manner, and perhaps otherwise, frequently leaves the proprietor in a very uneasy situation, with but a scanty pittance; and it is evident, that our author was by no means an economist. Shenstone says, “for whatever the world might esteem in poor Somervile, I really find, upon critical inquiry, that I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money.” Lady Luxborough declares him to have been a gentleman who deserved the esteem of every good man, and one who was regretted accordingly. He died July 19, 1742, and was buried at Wotton, near Henley on Arden. He had been married to Mary, daughter of Hugh Bethel, of Yorkshire, who died before him, without leaving any issue. By his will, proved the third of September, 1742, he remembered New College, the place of his education, by leaving to the master and fellows, fifteen volumes of Montfaucon’s Antiquities, and Addison’s works, for their library; and, apparently to encourage provincial literature, he bequeathed twenty pounds to purchase books for the parish library of the place of his residence. PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR.