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THE death of this celebrated Poet has been differently recorded by almost every one of his Biographers: "Having been compelled by his necessities to contract debts," says Dr. Johnson, "and hunted, as is supposed, by the terriers of the

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law, he retired to a public-house (the Bull, according to Anthony Wood,) on Tower-hill, where he is said to have died of want; or, as it is related by one of his Biographers, by swallowing, after a long fast, a piece of bread which charity had supplied. He went out, as is reported, almost naked, in the rage of hunger, and, finding a gentleman in a neighbouring coffee-house, asked him for a shilling. The gentleman gave him a guinea; and Otway, going away, bought a roll, and was choaked with the first mouthful. All this, I hope, is not true; and there is this ground of better hope, that Pope, who lived near enough to be well informed, relates, in "Spence's Memorials," that he died of a fever caught by violent pursuit of a thief that had robbed one of his friends. But that indigence, and its concomitants, sorrow and despondency, pressed hard upon him, has never been denied, whatever immediate cause might bring him to the grave." Pope's account of Otway's death was first related by Dr. Warton, in the notes to his " Essay on Pope," and in the following words: "Othad an intimate friend who was murdered (not robbed) in the street. One may guess at his sorrow, who has so feelingly described true af

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