Beilby Porteous (1731-1808) became Bishop of London in 1787. While a student at Cambridge in 1759, he won the Seatonian prize for his long poem, Death, from which this is extracted. (The extravagant elegy of George II in this poem was later satirized by Thackeray in The Four Georges.) As Bishop of London, Porteous was friendly to evangelicals and was a special friend of Hannah More. Although interested in reform, he was opposed to the French Revolution and preached against the Rights of Man.
