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 anything, 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. character by asserting Every man that dies is, As little can be added to his that he was lamented in his end. 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 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, in Westminster Abbey. ISAACUS NEWTONIUS: Quem Immortalem Testantur, Tempus, Natura, Colum: Nature, and Nature's laws, lay hid in night: On 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. XIII. On EDMUND Duke of BUCKINGHAM, who died in the 19th If modest youth, with cool reflection crowned, And, chiefs or sages long to Britain given, Pays the last tribute of a saint to heaven. 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 prosaic. 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 that make wise men serious, he confounds the living man with the dead : "Under this stone, or under this sill, Or under this turf, &c." When a man is once buried, the question, under what he is buried, is easily decided. He forgot that though he wrote the epitaph in a state of uncertainty, yet it could not be laid over him till his grave was made. Such is the folly of wit when it is ill employed. The world has but little new, even this wretchedness seems to have been borrowed from the following tuneless lines : "Ludovici Areosti humantur ossa Sub hoc marmore, vel sub hac humo, seu Siv hærede benignior comes, seu Opportunius incidens Viator: Nam scire haud potuit futura, sed nec Tanti erat vacuum sibi cadaver Ut utnam cuperet parare vivens, Vivens ista tamen sibi paravit. Quæ inscribi voluit suo sepulchro Olim siquod haberetis sepulchrum." Surely Ariosto did not venture to expect that his trifle would have ever had such an illustrious imitator. Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C. CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY. Edited by HENRY MORLEY, LL.D. IN WEEKLY VOLUMES, price 3d.; or in Cloth, 6d. 1. 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