To a Father on the Loss of a hopeful Son, who died at Man's Estate.

SIR,

I amtruly sorry for your Loss. So hopeful a Son just arrived at Man's Estate, and who was so great a Comfort and Assistance to you, to be snatched away, is what must administer to you the greatest Grief of any thing that could possibly befal you.

But, alas! yours is no new Case. The greatest Families have been thus afflicted, and with the Aggravation to some of them, that perhaps they have been deprived of their Heirs, and have not a Son left to continue their Name and Honour. The late Queen Anne, when Princess of Denmark, lost her beloved Duke of Gloucester, not only her Hopes, but the Hopes of the Nation; and the Crown, to which he seem’d not only born, but fashioned, was obliged to be settled, on that Occasion, upon a distant Branch of the Royal Line.

The great Duke of MARLBOROUGH, who by his Merit, and his Victories, had raised a princely Estate, as well as Titles, had but one Son, the Marquis of Blandford, on whom he and his Duchess built all their Hopes, for the perpetuating of those new Honours in their Family; and he was snatched away by Death, when he was at the University, training up to become the Dignities, to which he was intitled.

Still more recent was the unhappy Fate of a Lady of the first Quality in England. Her Lord had a Son lent to his advanced Years. This Son was the last of that noble Family, and on his Life depended all his Father's and his Mother's Hopes; and on his living till of Age, a valuable Part of the Estate itself, which otherwise was to fall to an illegitimate Offspring.What Care was not used to preserve the noble Youth! An eminent Physician was taken into the Family, to be made a constant Watchman, as it were, over his Health and Exercises. The young Nobleman himself was hopeful, dutiful, and as distinguished in the Graces of his Mind, as by his Birth.He travelled; his indulgent Mother travelled with him: He made a Campaign under his Uncle, the greatest General then surviving in an Age of Generals.