[Footnote 44: Mr. Cole gives him to Cambridge. MSS. Athenae Cantab, in Mus. Brit.] SOMERVILE. Of Mr.[45] Somervile's life I am not able to say any thing that can satisfy curiosity. He was a gentleman whose estate was in Warwickshire: his house, where he was born, in 1692, is called Edston, a seat inherited from a long line of ancestors; for he was said to be of the first family in his county. He tells of himself that he was born near the Avon's banks. He was bred at Winchester-school, and was elected fellow of New college. It does not appear that in the places of his education he exhibited any uncommon proofs of genius or literature. His powers were first displayed in the country, where he was distinguished as a poet, a gentleman, and a skilful and useful justice of the peace. Of the close of his life, those whom his poems have delighted will read with pain the following account, copied from the letters of his friend Shenstone, by whom he was too much resembled. "--Our old friend Somervile is dead! I did not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find myself on this occasion: 'Sublatum quaerimus.' 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." He died July 19,1742, and was buried at Wotton, near Henley on Arden. His distresses need not 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. It is with regret that I find myself not better enabled to exhibit memorials of a writer, who, at least, must be allowed to have set a good example to men of his own class, by devoting part of his time to elegant knowledge; and who has shown, by the subjects which his poetry has adorned, that it is practicable to be at once a skilful sportsman, and a man of letters.