sations, 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 424 that I should be unwilling to lose the two next lines, which yet are dearly bought if they cannot be retained without the four that follow them. X. On Mr. ELIJAH FENTON 2. At Easthampsted 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 Heav'n kept sacred from the Proud and Great: Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease3, Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear; From Nature's temp'rate feast rose satisfy'd *; Thank'd heav'n that he had liv'd, and that he dy'd.' 425 The first couplet of this epitaph is borrowed from Crashaw 5. 426 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 6. 427 428 429 4:30 XI. On Mr. GAY. In Westminster-Abbey, 1732 1. 'Of manners gentle, of affections mild; And uncorrupted, ev'n among the Great: As Gay was the favourite of our author3 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 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 Ante, GAY, 24. In 1729 Gay "Life is a jest, and all things show it. 2 For pensive Pope had at first contrast, and raise no ideas of excellence, either intellectual or moral '. In the next couplet rage is less properly introduced after the 431 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 unharmonious in its sound, and mean in its 432 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 433 among the Great is indeed such a peculiarity as deserved notice. But to be a safe companion is praise merely negative, arising not from the 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 434 was lamented in his end. Every man 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 with- 435 out any substantive, and the epithets without a subject 2. The thought in the last line, that Gay is buried in the bosoms 436 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 3. Swift wrote to Pope:-'Some gentlemen here object against the expression in the second line,-A child's simplicity; not against the propriety, but in compliance with the vulgar, who cannot distinguish simplicity and folly.... I confess I lay little weight upon this.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vii. 300. Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.' DRYDEN, To Mrs. Killigrew, 1. 70. 2 Swift objected:-'The whole is intended for an apostrophe to the dead person, which, however, does not appear till the eighth line.' Pope's Works (E. & C.), vii. 299. 3The same thought is found in George Whetstone's epitaph on the good Lord Dyer, 1582: "Et semper bonus ille bonis fuit; Sunt illi demum pectora sarco- JAMES BOSWELL, JUN., Johnson's 'Mr. Pope told me his conceit in The conceit is borrowed from 'For now (alas !) not in this stone (Passenger who e're thou art) 437 XII. Intended for Sir ISAAC NEWTON. ISAACUS NEWTONUS: Quem Immortalem Testantur, Tempus, Natura, Cælum: Hoc marmor fatetur. 'Nature, and Nature's laws, lay hid in night, And all was light.' 438 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. 439 In the verses the thought is obvious, and the words night and light are too nearly allied 2. 440 XIII. On EDMUND Duke of BUCKINGHAM, who died in the 'If modest youth, with cool reflection crown'd, The living virtue now had shone approv'd, This epitaph Mr. Warburton prefers to the rest 1, but I know 441 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 442 notice of criticism. The contemptible Dialogue between HE and SHE should have been suppressed for the author's sake 2. In his last epitaph on himself, in which he attempts to be 443 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.3' When a man is once buried the question under what he is 444 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 445 have been borrowed from the following tuneless lines: |