of this country rewarded your brother's services
in the last war, with an elegant monument in Westminster Abbey, it is
consistent that she should bestow some mark of distinction upon you. You
certainly deserve her notice, and a conspicuous place in the catalogue
of extraordinary persons. Yet it would be a pity to pass you from the
world in state, and consign you to magnificent oblivion among the tombs,
without telling the future beholder why. Judas is as much known as John,
yet history ascribes their fame to very different actions.

Sir William has undoubtedly merited a monument; but of what kind, or
with what inscription, where placed or how embellished, is a question
that would puzzle all the heralds of St. James's in the profoundest mood
of historical deliberation. We are at no loss, sir, to ascertain your
real character, but somewhat perplexed how to perpetuate its identity,
and preserve it uninjured from the transformations of time or mistake.
A statuary may give a false expression to your bust, or decorate it with
some equivocal emblems, by which you may happen to steal into reputation
and impose upon the hereafter traditionary world. Ill nature or ridicule
may conspire, or a variety of accidents combine to lessen, enlarge, or
change Sir William's fame; and no doubt but he who has taken so much
pains to be singular in his conduct, would choose to be just as singular
in his exit, his monument and his epitaph.

The usual honors of the dead, to be sure, are not sufficiently sublime
to escort a character like you to the republic of dust and ashes; for
however men may differ in their ideas of grandeur or of government here,
the grave is nevertheless a perfect republic. Death is not the monarch
of the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest he loses
a subject, and, like the foolish king you serve, will, in the end, war
himself out of all his dominions.

As a proper preliminary towards the arrangement of your funeral honors,
we readily admit of your new rank of knighthood. The title is perfectly
in character, and is your own, more by merit than creation. There are
knights of various orders, from the knight of the windmill to the knight
of the post. The former is your patron for exploits, and the latter will
assist you in settling your accounts. No honorary title could be more
happily applied! The ingenuity is sublime! And your royal master has
discovered more genius in fitting you therewith, than in ge