Patriots and chiefs! Britannia's mighty dead, Whose wisdom counsel'd, and whose valor bled, With gratulations, 'midst your radiant host, Receive to _glory_ Howe's heroic ghost; Who self severe, in Honor's cause expir'd, By native worth and your example fir'd, In foreign fields, like Sidney, young and brave, Doom'd to an early not untimely grave. Death flew commission'd by celestial love, And, scourging earth, improv'd the joys above. Impassive to low pleasure's baneful charm, Inur'd to gen'rous toils, and nerv'd for arms, He saw, indignant, our worst foes advance With strides gigantic--_Luxury_ and _France_! A martial spirit emulous to raise, He fought, as soldiers fought, in Marlbro's days. His country call'd--the noble talents given, 'Twas his t'exert--success belonged to heaven! High o'er his standard and the crimson shore Plum'd victory hover'd, till he breathed no more. 'Midst piles of slaughter'd foes--"_French_ slaves, he cry'd," "My _Britons_ will revenge"--then smil'd and dy'd! The unknown annotator of the British Museum copy writes against these lines, "I cannot yet learn who was the author of this noble epitaph." But it is clearly by Sterling. In the letter that accompanies the poem he writes: "Please to know that the grandfather of the late Lord Howe, when in a high employment in the reign of Queen Anne, was a generous patron to the father of the author of these lines, by presenting to her Majesty a memorial of his long services in the wars of Ireland, Spain and Flanders, and by farther promoting his pretensions to an honourable post in the army, of which he would have been deprived by a court-interest in favour of a younger and unexperienced officer." This letter is written from Maryland. It corresponds with all that we know of Sterling's life. His gratitude was unfailing to those who had helped the advancement of his father. In his dedication of "The Rival Generals" (London, 1722), Sterling, addressing himself to William Conolly, Lord Justice of Ireland, wrote: "Nor can I omit this occasion of testifying my gratitude to your Excellency, who so generously contributed, in the First Session of this Parliament, to do my Father that Justice in his Pretensions which was deny'd him in a late reign."