He touch'd the pence, when others touch'd the pot;
The hand that sign'd the mortgage paid the shot.
Old as he was, no vulgar known disease
On him could ever boast a power to seize;
"But[1], as he weigh'd his gold, grim Death in spight
Cast in his dart, which made three moidores light;
And, as he saw his darling money fail,
Blew his last breath, to sink the lighter scale."
He who so long was current, 'twould be strange
If he should now be cry'd down since his change.
The sexton shall green sods on thee bestow;
Alas, the sexton is thy banker now!
A dismal banker must that banker be,
Who gives no bills but of mortality!
EPITAPH ON THE SAME.
BENEATH this verdant hillock lies
Demar[2], the wealthy and the wise.
His heirs, that he might safely rest,
Have put his carcase in a chest;
The very chest, in which, they say,
His other self, his money, lay.
And, if his heirs continue kind
To that dear self he left behind,
I dare believe, that four in five
Will think his better half alive.
- ↑ These four lines were written by Stella.
- ↑ John D'Amory, esq. dying in 1720 without issue, his estates in Ireland went to John, the eldest son of his brother George; and his Dorsetshire estates to Joseph, a younger son, the immediate ancestor of the present earl of Dorchester.
