Note 118 — EPISTLE TO COLONEL ST. GEORGE. WRITTEN APRIL 1783.
Reading edition
l. 10. Vegetates on blood?—Colonel St. George had nobly distinguished himself in the late disastrous war with America.
He now lives with a considerable part of his head shot away, and though feeble, emaciated, and in almost constant pain, his imagination and his virtues have lost nothing of their vigour. His wit, and genius for allegoric and humourous invention in the art of the pencil, are first-rate. He is singularly happy in the grotesque humour of some of his designs, in the sublimity of others, and in the originality of all. He is also a pleasing poet, though not a poetic author—but upon these talents he sets so little value as to seem disgusted when their excellence is praised.
To the above note, coeval with the composition of the poem, its author grieves to add—that Colonel St. George was assassinated, in the year 1798, in his house in Ireland, by the rebels—and thus finally perished for his attachment to the government of this country.