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THE death of this celebrated Poet has been dif ferently 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

VOL. I.

B

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: "Ot

way had an intimate friend who was murdered (not robbed) in the street. One may guess at his sorrow, who has so feelingly described true af

fection in his Venice Preserved.' He pursued the murderer on foot, who fled to France, as far as Dover, where he was seized with a fever, occasioned by fatigue, which afterwards carried him to his grave in London." The robber, we find, is by this account a murderer, and as Dr. Warton was always more correct as to minor facts than Dr. Johnson, it is probable that he relates the story as he heard it; but it is to be traced to Spence, who was informed by Dennis, the critic, that "Otway had a friend, one Blakiston, who was shot; the murderer fled towards Dover, and Otway pursued him. In his return he drank water, when violently heated, and so got the fever which was the death of him." And Dennis, in the Preface to his "Observations on Pope's translation of Homer," 1717, 8vo, says, "Otway died in an alehouse," which is not inconsistent with the preceding account, as he generally lived in one; but whether the story of the guinea and the loaf can be introduced with any probability to heighten the poet's distress, we do not pretend to determine. It would not, perhaps, be very wrong to conjecture that both accounts might be true, but his contemporaries have left us no precise docu

ments. Dr. Johnson has remarked, that Otway appears by some of his verses to have been a zealous loyalist, and had what was, in those times, the common reward of loyalty,—he lived and died neglected.

IRISH BARDS IN THE TIME OF ELIZABETH.

THE character of the Bard, once so deservedly reverenced in Ireland, began to sink into contempt in the reign of Elizabeth. The following is Spenser's animated description of this order in their fallen state, in which he sets forth his reasons for recommending their extirpation. In this, we shall find the poet lashing them without mercy; yet, at the same time, doing justice to their productions.

"There is among the Irish a certain kind of people called Bardes, which are to them instead of Poets, whose profession is to set forth the praises or dispraises of men, in their poems or rithmes; the which are had in so high regard and estimation amongst them, that none dare displease them for fear to run into reproach through their offence, and to be made infamous in the mouths of men. For their verses are taken up with a general applause, and usually

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