guage; and, I think, it may be observed that the particle O! used at the beginning of the sentence, always offends. The third couplet is more happy; the value expressed for him, by different sorts of men, raises. him to esteem; there is yet something of the common cant of superficial satirists, who suppose that the insincerity of a courtier destroys all his sensations, and that he is equally a dissembler to the living and the dead. * At the third couplet I should wish the epitaph to close, but that I should be unwilling to lose the two next lines, which yet are dearly bought if they can. not be retained without the four that follow them. X. On Mr. ELIJAH FENTON. At Easthamstead in Berkshire, 1730. This modest stone, what few vain marbles can, May truly say, Here lies an honest man : A Poet, blest beyond the Poet's fate, Whom Heaven kept sacred from the Proud and Great: Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease, Content with science in the vale of peace. Calmly he look'd on either life, and here Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear; From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfy'd, Thank'd Heaven that he liv'd, and that he dy'd. *The thought was probably borrowed from Carew's, " Ob sequies to the Lady Anne Hay." I heard the virgins sigh; I saw the sleek And polished courtier channel his fresh cheek With real tears. J. B. The first couplet of this epitaph is borrowed from Crashaw. The four next lines contain a species of praise, peculiar, original, and just. Here, therefore, the inscription should have ended, the latter part containing nothing but what is common to every man who is wise and good. The character of Fenton was so amiable, that I cannot forbear to wish for some poet or biographer to display it more fully for the advantage of posterity. If he did not stand in the first rank of genius, he may claim a place in the second; and, whatever criticism may object to his writings, censure could find very little to blame in his life. XI. On Mr. GAY. In Westminster-Abbey, 1732. With native humour tempering virtuous ragė, As Gay was the favourite of our author, this epitaph was probably written with an uncommon degree of attention; yet it is not more successfully executed than the rest, for it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labour. The same observation may be extended to all works of imagination, which are often influenced by causes wholly out of the performer's power, by hints of which he perceives not the origin, by sudden elevations of mind which he cannot produce in himself, and which sometimes rise when he expects them least. The two parts of the first line are only echoes of each other; gentle manners and mild affections, if they mean any thing, must mean the same. That Gay was a man in wit is a very frigid commendation; to have the wit of a man is not much for a poet. The wit of man*, and the simplicity of a child, make a poor and vulgar contrast, and raise no ideas of excellence, either intellectual or moral. In the next couplet rage is less properly introduced after the mention of mildness and gentleness, which are made the constituents of his character; for a man so mild and gentle to temper his rage, was not difficult. The next line is inharmonious in its sound, and mean in its conception; the opposition is obvious, and the word lash used absolutely, and without any modification, is gross and improper. To be above temptation in poverty, and free from corruption among the Great, is indeed such a peculiarity as deserved notice. But to be a safe companion is a praise merely negative, arising not from possession of virtue, but the absence of vice, and that one of the most odious. As little can be added to his character, by asserting that he was lamented in his end. Every man * Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child." DRYDEN on Mrs. Killigrew. C. that dies is, at least by the writer of his epitaph, supposed to be lamented; and therefore this general lamentation does no honour to Gay. The first eight lines have no grammar; the adjectives are without any substantive, and the epithets without a subject. The thought in the last line, that Gay is buried in the bosoms of the worthy and the good, who are distinguished only to lengthen the line, is so dark that few understand it; and so harsh, when it is explained, that still fewer approve. XII. * Intended for Sir ISAAC NEWTON. ISAACUS NEWTONIUS: Hoc marmor fatetur. Nature, and Nature's laws, lay hid in night: Of this epitaph, short as it is, the faults seem not to be very few. Why part should be Latin, and part English, it is not easy to discover. In the Latin the opposition of Immortalis and Mortalis, is a mere sound, or a mere quibble; he is not immortal in any sense contrary to that in which he is mortal. In the verses the thought is obvious, and the words night and light are too nearly allied. * The same thought is found in George Whetstone's epitaph on the good Lord Dyer, 1582: Et semper bonus ille bonis fuit, ergo bonorum, J. B. XIII. On EDMUND Duke of BUCKINGHAM, who died in the 19th Year of his Age, 1735. If modest youth, with cool reflection crown'd, This epitaph Mr. Warburton prefers to the rest; but I know not for what reason. To crown with reflection is surely a mode of speech approaching to nonsense. Opening virtues blooming round, is something like tautology; the six following lines are poor and prosaick. Art is in another couplet used for arts, that a rhyme may be had to heart. The six last lines are the best, but not excellent. The rest of his sepulchral performances hardly deserve the notice of criticism. The contemptible "Dialogue" between HE and SHE should have been suppressed for the author's sake. In his last epitaph on himself, in which he attempts to be jocular upon one of the few things |