And in relation to this Tragedy he says, after very justly censuring Monsieur de Voltaire, for representing in the preface to his Merope the English as incapable of Tragedy, 'To such provoking stimulations I have owed inducement to retouch, for Mr. Voltaire's use, the characters in his high boasted Merope; and I have done it on a plan as near his own as I could bring it with a safe conscience; that is to say, without distaste to English audiences. This he likewise dedicated to lord Bolingbroke; and was the last he ever wrote.--There is a melancholy thread of fatal prophecy in the beginning of it; of his own approaching dissolution. Cover'd in fortune's shade, I rest reclin'd; My griefs all silent; and my joys resign'd. With patient eye life's evening gloom survey: Nor shake th'out-hast'ning sands; nor bid 'em stay-- Yet, while from life my setting prospects fly, Fain wou'd my mind's weak offspring shun to die. Fain wou'd their hope some light through time explore; The name's kind pasport--When the man's no more. From about the time he was solliciting the bringing on this play, an illness seized him; from the tormenting pains of which he had scarce an hour's intermission; and after making trial of all he thought could be of service to him in medicine; he was desirous to try his native air of London (as that of Plaistow was too moist a one) but he was then past all recovery, and wasted almost to a skeleton, from some internal cause, that had produced a general decay (and was believed to have been an inflamation in the kidneys; which his intense attachment to his studies might probably lay the foundation of.--When in town, he had the comfort of being honoured with the visits of the most worthy and esteemed among his friends; but he was not permitted many weeks to taste that blessing. [Transcriber's note: closing brackets missing in original.] The same humane and generous Mr. Mallet, who had before aided his Merope, about this time was making interest for its being played again, for the advantage of its author:--His royal highness the prince of Wales; had the great goodness to command it; and Mr. Hill just lived to express his grateful acknowledgments (to those about him) upon hearing of it:--But on the day before it was to be represented he died, in the very minute of the earthquake, February the eighth, 1749, which he seemed sensible of, though then deprived of utterance. Had he lived two days longer, he had been sixty-five years old.--He endur'd a twelve-month's torment of the body with a calmness that confess'd a superiority of soul! He was interred in the same grave with her the most dear to him when living, in the great cloister of Westminster-Abbey; near the lord Godolphin's tomb.