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Amidst corruption, luxury, and rage,
Still leave fome ancient virtues to our age:
Nor let us fay (thofe English glories gone)
The laft true Briton lies beneath this stone.

The epitaph on Withers affords another inftance of common places, though fomewhat diverfified, by mingled qualities, and the peculiarity of a profeffion.

The fecond couplet is abrupt, general, and unpleafing; exclamation seldom fucceeds in our language; and, I think, it may be obferved that the particle O! ufed at the beginning of a fentence, always offends.

The third couplet is more happy; the value expreffed for him, by different forts of men, raifes him to efteem; there is yet fomething of the common cant of fuperficial fatirifts, who fuppofe that the infincerity of a courtier deftroys all his fenfa

fenfations, and that he is equally a diffembler to the living and the dead.

At the third couplet I fhould with the epitaph to clofe, Let that I fhould be unwilling to lofe the two next lines, which yet are dearly Dought if they cannot be retained without the four that follow them.

X.

On Mr. ELIJAH FENTON. At Easthamfted in Berkfire, 1730.

This modeft ftone, what few vain marbles

can,

May truly fay, Here lies an honest man :

A poet, bleft beyond the poet's fate,

Whom Heaven kept facred from the Proud and
Great:

Foe to loud praife, and friend to learned eafe,.
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

From Nature's temperate feaft rofe fatisfy'd, Thank'd heaven that he had liv'd, and that he dy'd.

The first couplet of this epitaph is borrowed. The four next lines contain a fpecies of praise peculiar, original, and juft. Here, therefore, the infcription fhould have ended, the latter part containing nothing but what is common to every man who is wife and good. The character of Fenton was fo amiable, that I cannot forbear to wish for fome poet or biographer to difplay it more fully for the advantage of pofterity. If he did not stand in the firft rank of genius, he may claim a place in the fecond; and, whatever criticifm may object to his writings, cenfure could find very little to blame in his life.

On Mr. GAY.

XI.

In Westminster-Abbey,

1732.

Of manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit, a man; fimplicity, a child:

With native humour tempering virtuous rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age:
Above temptation, in a low eftate,
And uncorrupted, even among the Great:
A fafe companion, and an eafy friend,
Unblam'd through life, lamented in thy end.
These are thy honours! not that here thy buft
Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy duft;
But that the Worthy and the Good shall say,
Striking their penfive bofoms-Here lies GAY.

As Gay was the favourite of our author, this epitaph was probably written with an uncommon degree of attention; yet it is not more happily executed than the reft, for it does not al

ways happen that the fuccefs of a poet is proportionate to his labour. The fame obfervation may be extended to all works of imagination, which are often influenced by caufes wholly out of the performer's power, by hints of which he perceives not the origin, by fudden elevations of mind which he cannot produce in himfelf, and which fometimes rife 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, muft mean the fame.

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 fimplicity of a child, make a poor and vulgar contraft, and raise no ideas of excellence, either intellectual or moral.

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