The Count de Grammont died in 1707.  Some years after the publication of his Memoirs, Hamilton was engaged in a very different work:  he translated Pope’s Essay on Criticism into French, and, as it should seem, so much to that great poet’s satisfaction, that he wrote a very polite letter of thanks to him, which is inserted in Pope’s Correspondence.  Hamilton’s Essay was, I believe, never printed, though Pope warmly requested to have that permission:  the reign of Louis XIV. had now ceased; and, for several years before his death, the character of the old court of that prince had ceased also:  profligacy and gaiety had given way to devotion and austerity.  Of Hamilton’s friends and literary acquaintance few were left:  the Duke of Berwick was employed in the field, or at Versailles:  some of the ladies, however, continued at St. Germain; and in their society, particularly that of his niece, the Countess of Stafford (in whose name he carried on a lively correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montague), he passed much of his time.  He occasionally indulged in poetical compositions, of a style suited to his age and character; and when he was past seventy, he wrote that excellent copy of verses, ‘Sur l’ Usage de la Vie dans la Vieillesse’; which, for grace of style, justness, and purity of sentiment, does honour to his memory.

Hamilton died at St. Germain, in April, 1720, aged about seventy-four.  His death was pious and resigned.  From his poem, entitled Reflections, he appears, like some other authors, to have turned his mind, in old age, entirely to those objects of sacred regard, which, sooner or later, must engage the attention of every rational mind.  To poetry he bids an eternal adieu, in language which breathes no diminution of genius, at the moment that he for ever recedes from the poetical character.  But he aspired to a better.

Whatever were Hamilton’s errors, his general character was respectable.  He has been represented as grave, and even dull, in society; the very reverse, in short, of what he appears in his Memoirs:  but this is probably exaggerated.  Unquestionably, he had not the unequalled vivacity of the Count de Grammont in conversation; as Grammont was, on the other hand, inferior, in all respects, to Hamilton when the pen was in his hand; the latter was, however, though reserved in a large society, particularly agreeable in a more select one.  Some of his letters remain, in which he alludes to his want of that facility at impromptu which gave such brilliancy to the conversation of some of his brother wits and contemporaries.  But, while we admit the truth of this, let it be remembered, at the same time, that when he wrote this, he was by no means young; that he criticised his own defects with severity; that he was poor, and living in a court which itself subsisted on the alms of another.  Amidst such circumstances, extemporary gaiety cannot always be found.  I can suppose, that the Duchess of Maine, who laid claim to the character of a patroness