fit of
illness which confined him to the house, he amused himself with writing
his own epitaph, which he calls "A picture drawn from the life without
heightening." It is as follows:--

Here, reader, stand awhile, and know
Whose carcase 'tis that rots below;
A man's, who walk'd by Reason's rule
Yet sometimes err'd and play'd the fool;
A man's sincere in all his ways,
And full of the Creator's praise,
Who laughed at priestcraft, pride and strife,
And all the little tricks of life.
He lov'd his king, his country more,
And dreadful party-rage forbore:
He told nobility the truth
And winked at hasty slips of youth.
The honest poor man's steady friend.
The villain's sconce in hopes to mend.
His father, mother, children, wife,
His riches, honour, length of life,
Concern not thee. Observe what's here--
He rests in hope and not in fear.

His wife dying in May, 1756, he married for the second time in October
the same year Mrs. Frances Bendish (sister to the Rev. Sir Richard
Wrottesley, of Wrottesley, Bart.), who long survived him, dying December
24, 1798, at Froxfield, near Petersfield, in Hampshire, at a very
advanced age.

The learned doctor himself died March 6, 1760, with a return of the gout
in his stomach, and his death was universally lamented by his tenants,
who lost an indulgent landlord; by his servants, who lost a good master;
but more by numbers of poor in the populous villages adjacent and at a
distance, in grateful remembrance of the charitable advice and friendly
assistance they had always enjoyed at his kindly hands. A somewhat
eulogistic entry of his death appears in the Bilston Registers.

As Dr. Wilkes left no issue, his property passed to the Unett family, the
representatives of his aunt Anne who had married George Unett, of
Wolverhampton.

He was buried at Willenhall in his native soil, where a neat monument was
erected to his memory near the family pew, by his heirs, Captain Richard
Wilkes Unett, and Mr. John Wilkes Unett; the tablet was thus inscribed:--

"Near this place
Lie the remains
of
RICHARD WILKES, M.D.

Formerly fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge; the last of an
ancient and respectable family resident at this place 300 years and
upwards. He married first, Rachel, e