in London on 19 June 1767, aged 75, and was buried in St. Paul's, Covent Garden On his tombstone was inscribed his epitaph, written by himself: Eager to get, but not to keep, the pelf, A friend to all mankind except himself. In his will, Worsdale left money to five acknowledged bastards, as well as to a lady to give her independence from her husband. He had, throughout his adult life, been as flamboyantly philandering as he could and had enjoyed his reputation as a rake. Laetitia Pilkington's Memoir gives a scathing account of him, and other memoirists record him as a short, unseemly man whose whole skill was in pretence and bravado. Legacy Worsdale's portraits are stored at Irish National Gallery. Author David Ryan visited the vaults of the National Gallery of Ireland to view Worsdale's "striking 'conversation piece' portraits of the Dublin and Limerick Hellfire Clubs" as part of his research for his book on the Irish Hellfire clubs. References O'Donoghue, F. M. and Arianne Burnette. "James Worsdale" in Matthew, H.C.G. and Brian Harrison, eds. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. vol. 60, 340. London: OUP, 2004. Walpole's Anecdotes (Dallaway and Wornum) Vertue's collections in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 23076, f. 37 Memoirs of Lætitia Pilkington, 1748−54 Cooke's Memoirs of Samuel Foote Baker's Biographia Dramatica Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits Genest's Hist. Account, iii. 448. External links "James Worsdale" Portrait Painter, at libraryireland.com "James Worsdale" by William Dickinson, after Robert Edge Pine, mezzotint, published 1769m at the National Portrait Gallery Attribution 1730s 18th-century English painters English male painters English dramatists and playwrights 1692 births 1767 deaths Year of birth uncertain English male dramatists and playwrights 18th-century English male artists