Towards the close of his life, he was much troubled with the gout; and for this reason, in the summer of the year 1728, he made a tour to Bath, for the benefit of the waters, where he had the misfortune to be overturned in his chariot, from which time he complained of a pain in his side, which was supposed to arise from some inward bruise.  Upon his return to London, he perceived his health gradually decline, which he bore with fortitude and resignation.

On January the 19th, 1728-9, he yielded his last breath, about five o’clock in the morning, at his house in Surrey-street in the Strand, in the fifty-seventh year of his age.  On the sunday following, January 26, his corpse lay in state in the Jerusalem-Chamber, from whence the same evening, between the hours of nine and ten, it was carried with great decency and solemnity to Henry the VIIth’s Chapel; and after the funeral service was performed, it was interred in the Abbey.  The pall was supported by the duke of Bridgewater, earl of Godolphin, lord Cobham, lord Wilmington, the honourable George Berkley, Esq; and Brigadier-general Churchill; and colonel Congreve followed his corpse as chief mourner; some time after, a neat and elegant monument was erected to his memory, by Henrietta duchess of Marlborough.

Mr. Congreve’s reputation is so extensive, and his works so generally read, that any specimen of his poetry may be deemed superfluous.  But finding an epistle of our author’s in the Biographia Brittannica, not inserted in his works, it may not be improper to give it a place here.  It is addressed to the lord viscount Cobham, and the ingenious authors inform us, that they copied it from a Ms. very correct.

As in this poem there is a visible allusion to the measures, which the writer thought were too complaisant to the French, it is evident it must have been penned but a very small time before his death.

  Of improving the present time.

  Sincerest critic of my prose, or rhyme. 
  Tell how thy pleasing Stowe employs thy time. 
  Say, Cobham, what amuses thy retreat? 
  Or stratagems of war, or schemes of state? 
  Dost thou recall to mind, with joy or grief,
  Great Marlbro’s actions? that immortal chief,
  Whose highest trophy, rais’d in each campaign,
  More than suffic’d to signalize a reign. 
  Does thy remembrance rising, warm thy heart
  With glory past, where thou thyself had’st part;
  Or do’st thou grieve indignant, now to see
  The fruitless end of all thy victory! 
  To see th’ audacious foe, so late subdu’d,
  Dispute those terms for which so long they su’d,
  As if Britannia now were sunk so low,
  To beg that peace she wanted to bestow. 
  Be far, that guilt! be never known that shame! 
  That England should retract her rightful claim! 
  Or ceasing to be dreaded and ador’d,
  Stain with her pen the lustre of her sword. 
  Or dost thou give the winds, a-far to