on his way to Nagpore, charged with an important mission, when he died of fever, in 1778, in Orissa, where he was buried, and Warren Hastings caused a monument to be erected over his grave.[1] He touchingly alluded to his young friend in a fine paraphrase of Horace’s Ode xvi. lib. 2 (Otium Divos), which he wrote on his way home from Bengal in 1785:
“An early death was Elliot’s doom.
I saw his opening virtues bloom,
And manly sense unfold;
Too soon to fade! I bade the stone
Record his name midst hordes unknown,
Unknowing what it told.”[2]
Bogle wrote: “I cannot pass over the name of poor Elliot without a heavy heart. I never had, I never can have, so strong an esteem—I should say veneration—for anyone as I had for him, and I was happy beyond everybody in his friendship. I had not a thought that I concealed from him. He had none that he concealed from me. But, alas! he is gone for ever.” In three short years the friend who wrote these lines was to follow young Elliot to the grave.[3]
- ↑ Sir Gilbert Elliot wrote, in 1781: “The honour paid by the Government to my brother’s memory is extremely affecting to us, and gives us the highest satisfaction of which this subject is capable; and the share which the friendship of Mr. Hastings has taken in it, at the same time that it adds so much to the honour intended to my brother, reflects some part of it on the warmth and sincerity of his own character, and demands the affection and gratitude of all those who knew my brother.” It is melancholy to reflect that all this was insincere, and that Sir Gilbert, in five short years, became, in conjunction with Burke and Sheridan, one of the most virulent traducers of his brother's best and truest friends, for whom, in this letter, he expresses so much gratitude and affection.
- ↑ It is addressed to Mr. Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, and was published in the ‘Asiatic Journal’ (Hirst Series), vi. p. 619.
- ↑ Bogle was one of Alexander Elliot’s executors; the other was Mr. Claud Alexander. This led to a correspondence with Sir Gilbert Elliot, commenced by Bogle in a letter dated December 7, 1778, announcing his friend’s death. On February 10, 1781, Sir Gilbert writes: “Give me leave to entreat some portion of that affection and confidence which my poor brother possessed, and which I have occasion to know he valued so highly. On my part I can freely offer you my heart. Our poor Alick had prepared us all for such a union, and it is now become both a duty in some degree to our commonn friend, and a consolation in our common loss.” Bogle did not live to receive this letter.
