In “Sartor Resartus” our readers remember an epitaph, somewhat coarse, although disguised in good dog-Latin, upon a country squire, and his sayings and doings in this world.  We have not a copy of that work at hand, and cannot quote the epitaph, nor would we, though we could, since even the dog-Latin is too plain and perspicuous for many readers.  We recommend those, however, who choose to turn it up; and they will find in it (with the exception of the writing of “the Chase”) the full history of William Somerville, of whom we know little, but that he was born, that he hunted, ate, drank, and died.

He was born in 1682; but in what month, or on what day, we are not informed.  His estate was in Warwickshire, its name Edston, and he had inherited it from a long line of ancestors.  His family prided itself upon being the first family in the county.  He himself boasts of having been born on the banks of Avon, which has thus at least produced two poets, of somewhat different calibre indeed—­the one a deer-stealer, and the other a fox-hunter—­Shakspeare and Somerville.  Somerville was educated at Winchester School, and was afterwards elected fellow of New College.  From his studies—­of his success in which we know nothing—­he returned to his native county, and there, says Johnson, “was distinguished as a poet, a gentleman, and a skilful and useful justice of the peace;”—­we may add, as a jovial companion and a daring fox-hunter.  His estate brought him in about L1500 a-year, but his extravagance brought him into pecuniary distresses, which weighed upon his mind, plunged him into intemperate habits, and hurried him away in his 60th year.  Shenstone, who knew him well, thus mourns aver his departure in one of his letters:—­“Our old friend Somerville is dead; I did not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find myself on this occasion. Sublatum quoerimus, I can now excuse all his foibles; impute them to age and to distressed 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.”

Somerville died July 19, 1742, and was buried at Wotton, near Henley-on-Arden.  His estate went to Lord Somerville in Scotland, but his mother, who lived to a great age, had a jointure of L600.  He describes himself, in verses addressed to Allan Ramsay, as

  “A squire, well-born and six feet high.”

He seems, from the affection and sympathy discovered for him by Shenstone, to have possessed the virtues as well as the vices of the squirearchy of that age; their frankness, sociality, and heart, as well as their improvidence and tendency to excess; and may altogether be called a sublimated Squire Western.