way everywhere, and were being pursued to the walls of the town. According to one eye-witness, he ‘raised himself up on this news and smiled in my face. “Now,” said he, “I die contented,” and from that instant the smile never left his face till he died’ (13 Sept. 1759; English Hist. Review, xii. 763). Others add that he sent an order to the reserve battalion to cut off the French retreat by the bridge over the St. Charles (Knox, ii. 79; cf. Notes and Queries, 6 Nov. 1897).
He had had a presentiment of his fate, which made him the night before take a miniature of Miss Lowther from his breast, and hand it over to his old schoolfellow, Commander John Jervis (afterwards Lord St. Vincent), to be restored to her. It was perhaps this feeling that prompted him to murmur the lines of Gray's ‘Elegy’ as the boats dropped down the St. Lawrence, and to say, ‘I would rather be the author of that piece than take Quebec’ (Professor E. E. Morris in Engl. Hist. Rev. xv. 125–9 gives some reason to think that this occurred earlier). A few lines of Sarpedon's speech to Glaucus (Pope, Iliad, xii. 391, &c.), written down from memory, were found in the pocket of his coat.
Montcalm survived him only a few hours, and Quebec surrendered on the 18th. As Monckton was wounded, Townshend was in temporary command. No sense of loss found expression in his despatch and general orders: Wolfe's death was barely mentioned. But it was otherwise with the troops. Wolfe's illness had caused ‘the greatest concern to the whole army,’ and his recovery ‘inconceivable joy;’ and now Major Knox notes in his ‘Diary’ (ii. 71) that ‘our joy at this success is inexpressibly damped by the loss we sustained of one of the greatest heroes which this or any other age can boast of.’
In a masterly despatch, dated 2 Sept., Wolfe had described to Pitt the operations up to that time, and the obstacles which stood in his way. This despatch arrived on 14 Oct. and caused general despondency. ‘Mr. Pitt with reason gives it all over, and declares so publicly,’ Newcastle wrote next day. On the following night, the 16th, Pitt ‘has the pleasure to send the Duke of Newcastle the joyful news that Quebec is taken, after a signal and compleat victory over the French army. General Wolfe is killed. Brigadier Monckton wounded, but in a fair way. Brigadier Townshend perfectly well. Montcalm is killed and about fifteen hundred French’ (Addit. MS. 32897, fols. 88 and 115). ‘The effect of so joyful news immediately on such a dejection, and then the mixture of grief and pity which attended the public congratulations and applauses, was very singular and affecting’ (Burke in Ann. Reg. 1759, p. 43; Wolfe's despatch is given at p. 241).
The fleet brought home Wolfe's body. It was landed at Portsmouth with military honours on 17 Nov. 1759, and was buried in the family vault at the parish church of St. Alfege, Greenwich, on the 20th. Next day Pitt moved an address for a public monument to Wolfe in a laboured speech, described by Walpole as ‘perhaps the worst harangue he ever uttered’ (Memoirs of George II, ii. 393). The monument, by Joseph Wilton, was uncovered on 4 Oct. 1773. It stands between the north ambulatory and St. John the Evangelist's in Westminster Abbey. At Westerham a tablet was put up to him in the parish church, and a cenotaph at Squerries Court, on the spot where Wolfe received his first commission. A column marks the place where he fell; and in the public garden at Quebec there is an obelisk, erected in 1828 by Canadians of French and English descent, to the joint memory of Wolfe and Montcalm. On it is inscribed, ‘Mortem virtus, communem famam historia, monumentum posteritas dedit.’ The Society for the Promotion of Arts and Commerce struck a medal to commemorate the capture of Quebec (Brit. Mus. English Medals, No. 502).
There is a portrait of Wolfe, at about the age of sixteen, at Squerries Court. In the National Portrait Gallery, London, there is also a good three-quarter-length portrait of a young officer, believed to be Wolfe. The artist is unknown (see also Century Magazine, January 1898). A profile sketch was made by his aide-de-camp, Captain Hervey Smith, at Quebec, and is now at the Royal United Service Institution; and an engraving from it by Houston was said by Wolfe's friend, General Warde, to be ‘the most like thing ever done of him’ (Addit. MS. 33929, fol. 44). This sketch is supposed to have been used by Schaak for his picture, of which there is a half-length in the National Portrait Gallery, London (together with a facsimile of Smith's sketch). They give the same singular profile, ‘like the flap of an envelope,’ but there is a marked difference of expression. The death of Wolfe was painted by West, Romney, and Penny. The former, in his well-known picture now at Grosvenor House, set a new example of realism in costume, but otherwise disregarded accuracy. West also painted a picture of Wolfe in 1777 (Cat. Third Loan Exhib. No. 767; cf. also No. 804).
