III. ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT, Only Son of the Lord Chancellor HARCOURT; at the Church of Stanton-Harcourt T in Oxfordshire, 1720. this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near; Here lies the Friend most lov'd, the Son most dear; How vain is Reason, Eloquence how weak! IV. ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ. JACOBUS CRAGGS REGI MAGNE BRITANNIÆ A SECRETIS PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ÉT DELICIÆ: Statesman, yet Friend to Truth! of Soul sincere, Who broke no Promise, serv'd no private End; Prais'd, wept, and honour'd, by the Muse he lov'd3. V. INTENDED FOR MR ROWE, In Westminster Abbey. HY relics, ROWE, to this fair Urn we trust, THY And sacred, place by DRYDEN's awful dust: Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, 1 These were the very words used by Louis XIV., when his Queen died, 1683; though it is not to be imagined they were copied by Pope. Warton. 2 [As to Craggs, v. ante, p. 442. Horace Walpole sent to Sir Horace Mann a very illnatured epitaph on the same Craggs, whose father had been a footman: Here lies the last, who died before the first of his family.' (Jesse.) As Craggs's death alone arrested the enquiry into the charge of peculation brought against him in connexion with the South Sea frauds (his father committing suicide shortly afterwards) the praise in the third line of Pope's Epitaph is singularly bold.] 3 These verses were originally the conclusion of the Epistle to Mr Addison on his Dialogue on Medals, and were adopted as an Epitaph by an alteration in the last line, which in the Epistle stood 5 'And prais'd unenvied by the Muse he lov'd.' Roscoe [cf. p. 264]. 4 [As to Rowe, see note to Epil. to Jane Shore, p. 94.] 5 Beneath a rude] The Tomb of Mr Dryden was erected upon this hint by the Duke of Buckingham; to which was originally intended this Epitaph, This SHEFFIELD rais'd. The sacred Dust below know? which the Author since changed into the plain J. DRYDEN. P. 6 [The above epitaph was subsequently altered by Pope, the following lines being added: H VI. ON MRS CORBET, Who died of a Cancer in her Breast1. ERE rests a Woman, good without pretence, Blest with plain Reason, and with sober Sense: No Conquests she, but o'er herself, desir'd, No Arts essay'd, but not to be admir'd. Passion and Pride were to her soul unknown, So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refin'd; VII. 5 10 ON THE MONUMENT OF THE HONOURABLE ROBERT DIGBY, AND OF HIS SISTER MARY, Erected by their Father, the Lord DIGBY, in the Church of Sherborne G in Dorsetshire, 17273. O! fair Example of untainted youth, Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth: Compos'd in suff'rings, and in joy sedate, Good without noise, without pretensión great. Just of thy Word, in ev'ry thought sincere, Who knew no wish but what the world might hear: 5 Lover of peace, and friend of human kind: Go live! for Heav'n's Eternal year is thine, Go, and exalt thy Moral to Divine. And thou, blest Maid! attendant on his doom, Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! This epitaph is on a monument in St Mar- VIII. ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER, In Westminster-Abbey, 17231. NELLER, by Heav'n, and not a Master, taught, K Whose Art was Nature, and whose Pictures Thought; Now for two ages having snatch'd from fate 5 ance. IX. ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS, HERE, WITHERS, rest, thou bravest, gentlest mind, Thy Country's friend, but more of human kind. Oh born to Arms! O Worth in Youth approv'd! For thee the hardy Vet'ran drops a tear, And the gay Courtier feels the sigh sincere. 1 Pope had made Sir Godfrey Kneller, on his death-bed, a promise to write his epitaph, which he seems to have performed with reluctHe thought it 'the worst thing he ever wrote in his life.' (Spence.) Roscoe. [Sir Godfrey Kneller was born at Lübeck in 1648, and after being introduced by the Duke of Monmouth to King Charles II., filled the office of Statepainter under that monarch and his successors up to George I., in whose reign (in 1726) he died.] 2 Imitated from the famous Epitaph on Ra 5 1Ο scended from a military stock, and bred in arms in Britain, Dunkirk, and Tangier. Through the whole course of the two last wars of England with France, he served in Ireland, in the Low Countries, and in Germany: was present in every battle and at every siege, and distinguished in all by an activity, a valour and a zeal which nature gave and honour improved. A love of glory and of his country animated and raised him above that spirit which the trade of war inspires-a desire of acquiring riches and honours by the miseries of mankind. His temper was humane, his benevolence universal, and among all those ancient virtues which he preserved in practice and in credit none was more remarkable than his hospitality. He died at the age of 78, on the 11th of November, 1729, to whom this monument is erected by his companion in the wars and his friend through life, HENRY DISNEY.' Both Withers and Disney (who rests beside his comrade) are mentioned among Pope's friends by Gay, who alludes to the hospitality panegyrized in the above epitaph.] X. ON MR ELIJAH FENTON, At Easthamstead in Berks, 17301. HIS modest Stone, what few vain Marbles can2, A Poet, blest beyond the Poet's fate, Whom Heav'n kept sacred from the Proud and Great: Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear; From Nature's temp'rate feast rose satisfy'd3, Thank'd Heav'n that he had liv'd, and that he died. 10 OF XI. ON MR GAY, In Westminster-Abbey, 1732. F Manners gentle, of Affections mild; [Elijah Fenton was born in 1683. Fenton, together with Broome, wrote part of the translation of the Odyssey in a style so similar to Pope's that most readers would fail to distinguish between the work of the latter and that of his coadjutors. A survey of Fenton's works shows a striking reproduction on his part of most of the species of poetry cultivated by Pope. Fenton has a pastoral (Florelio) to correspond to Pope's fourth and favourite Pastoral; a paraphrase of the 14th chapter of Isaiah to correspond to Pope's Messiah; an epistle from Sappho to Phaon, Epistles, Prologues, and Translations and Imitations of Horace. Fenton was a thorough master of versification, and excelled Pope in his command of a variety of metres. His Ode to Lord Gower 10 (which Pope placed next in merit to Dryden's 2 The modest front of this small floor Crashaw, Epitaph upon Mr Ashton. Johnson. [There is a very striking coincidence between XII. INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON, ISAACUS NEWTONUS: Testantur Tempus, Natura, Cœlum: Hoc marmor fatetur. Nature and Nature's Laws lay hid in Night: XIII. ON DR FRANCIS ATTERBURY, Bishop of Rochester, Who died in Exile at Paris, 1732, (his only Daughter having expired in his arms, immediately after she arrived in France to see him3.) YES DIALOGUE. VES, we have liv'd-one pang, and then we part! Till you are dust like me. HE. Dear Shade! I will: these four lines and the following in the Epitaph recently published by Prof. H. Morley, and believed by him to be Milton's: In this little bed my dust This parallel passage at once explains the mean- 2 and all was Light.] It had been better-and there was Light,-as more conformable to the reality of the fact, and to the allusion whereby it is celebrated. Warburton. 3 [As to Atterbury, see Epil. to Satires, Dial. 11. v. 82.] Macaulay, in his essay on Francis He said, and died". Atterbury, in relating that after his death his body was brought to England and privately buried under the nave of Westminster Abbey, observes: That the epitaph with which Pope honoured the memory of his friend does not appear on the walls of the great national cemetery, is no subject of regret: for nothing worse was ever written by Colley Cibber.'] 4 [Bowles has pointed out that many of our old epitaphs are written in dialogue.] 5 [Cf. Moral Essays, Ep. I. v. 265. Atterbury's letter to the Pretender, almost the last expressions of this most eloquent man' (Lord Stanhope), may be compared with Pope's poetic version, which was sarcastically annotated by Warburton, a safer kind of prelate.] |