Congreve should be displaced, the Earl of Oxford made this answer:-


"Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni,
Nec tam aversus equos Tyria sol jungit ab urbe."


He that was thus honoured by the adverse party might naturally
expect to be advanced when his friends returned to power, and he was
accordingly made secretary for the island of Jamaica, a place, I
suppose without trust or care, but which, with his post in the
Customs, is said to have afforded him twelve hundred pounds a year.
His honours were yet far greater than his profits. Every writer
mentioned him with respect, and among other testimonies to his
merit, Steele made him the patron of his "Miscellany," and Pope
inscribed to him his translations of the "Iliad." But he treated
the muses with ingratitude; for, having long conversed familiarly
with the great, he wished to be considered rather as a man of
fashion than of wit; and, when he received a visit from Voltaire,
disgusted him by the despicable foppery of desiring to be considered
not as an author but a gentleman; to which the Frenchman replied,
"that, if he had been only a gentleman, he should not have come to
visit him."

In his retirement he may be supposed to have applied himself to
books, for he discovers more literature than the poets have commonly
attained. But his studies were in his later days obstructed by
cataracts in his eyes, which at last terminated in blindness. This
melancholy state was aggravated by the gout, for which he sought
relief by a journey to Bath: but, being overturned in his chariot,