Blest peer! his great forefathers' ev'ry grace Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine, AT ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE TO KING WILLIAM III., WHO HAVING RESIGNED HIS PLACE, DIED IN HIS RETIREMENT EASTHAMSTED IN BERKSHIRE, 1716. A PLEASING form; a firm, yet cautious mind; 5 A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth; A gen'rous faith, from superstition free; A love to peace, and hate of tyranny; Such this man was; who now, from earth remov❜d, 1 Particularly the first Earl, of whom he said to Spence: "Mr. Sackville (afterwards the first Earl of Dorset of that name) was the best English poet between Chaucer's and Spenser's time."—Anecdotes, p. 21. 10 2 This epitaph was written in the first place for John, Lord Caryll. It first appears as an epitaph on Trumbal, in the quarto edition of Pope's poems in 1735. III. ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT,' ONLY SON OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR HARCOURT; AT THE CHURCH OF To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near; How vain is reason, eloquence how weak! 6 If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak. 1 He married Elizabeth, daughter of John Evelyn, and left one son, who became Earl of Harcourt, and is alluded to in Dunciad, iv., 545. The St. James's Evening Post of July 7th, 1720, announces: "The Hon. Simon Harcourt, only son of Lord Harcourt, died lately in France." A copy of the epitaph appeared in Hill's Plain-Dealer, Nov. 13th, 1724. 2 In the Plain-Dealer: "wept. 3 In the Plain-Dealer: "Nor." 4 Mr. White remarks as follows: -"This poor conceit was by no means original in Pope." "A great prince" (says Reresby in his Miscellany) on the death of his queen was heard to exclaim, 'Is it possible that she should be dead, and that I should lose her for ever. She who never gave me the least trouble besides this of her death.'" And Hackett, ii. p. 15, quotes from Montfaucon : 66 LUCIA JULIA PRISCA, Vixit Annos xxvi. Nihil usquam peccavit Nisi quod mortua est. 5 And on a stone in St. Mary Magdalen's, Bermondsey, 1694: "Complete in all but days resigned her breath, Who never disobeyed but in her death." -WAKEFIELD. The same thought is also found in an epitaph at Stoneland, near Tonbridge, to the memory of Thomas Sackville, one of the thirteen children of Richard, Earl of Dorset : "He scarce knew sin but what curs'd nature gave, And yet grim death hath snatched him to the grave. He never to his parents was unkind, But in his early leaving them behind." 5 In the Plain-Dealer: "When." 6 In the Plain-Dealer: "Yet." 7 In the Plain-Dealer, the epitaph ends with the following additional couplet: "Ah no! 'tis vain to strive, it will not be, No grief that can be told is felt for thee." IV. ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. JACOBUS CRAGGS' REGI MAGNE BRITANNIE A SECRETIS ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBUS PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ET DELICIE: VIXIT TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR ANNOS, HEU PAUCOS, Xxxv. OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX. STATESMAN, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, Prais'd, wept, and honour'd by the Muse he lov'd.' V. INTENDED FOR MR. ROWE, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. THY relics, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, 1 This epitaph first appears in Dodsley's edition of Pope's Works, 1738, among the Addenda to Epitaphs. 2 These lines are inserted at the end of the Epistle to Addison as an inscription for a supposed medal in honour of Craggs. But the last line is there different: "And praised, unenvied, by the Muse he loved." See the note on the passage, p. 206 of Vol. VI. of this editiou. Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! Blessed in thy genius, in thy love, too, blest! One grateful woman to thy fame supplies, What a whole thankless land to his denies.' 5 VI. ON MRS. CORBET,' WHO DIED OF A CANCER IN HER BREAST. HERE rests a woman, good without pretence, The epitaph in Westminster Abbey is as follows : "Thy reliques, Rowe, to this sad shrine we trust, And near thy Shakespeare place thy honoured bust. Oh! next him, skilled to draw the tender tear, For never heart felt passion more sin cere ; To nobler sentiment to fire the brave, For never Briton more disdained a slave. Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest, Blest in thy genius, in thy love, too, blest! And blest that timely from our scene removed, Thy soul enjoys the liberty it loved. To these, so mourned in death, so loved in life, The childless parent and the widowed wife, With tears inscribes this monumental stone, That holds their ashes and expects her own." There is no positive external evidence that the amended epitaph was written VOL. IV.-POETRY. 5 by Pope. The style of the verses, however, is almost conclusive as to their authorship. Rowe's widow married for her second husband, Colonel Deane hence, as Lord Hailes tells us, the sarcastic reference to her in Epilogue to Satires, ii. 108. (See Vol. iii. 480.) By this (his second) wife, Rowe had a daughter, who, Johnson says, married Mr. Fane, and who, according to Mr. Cunningham, died in 1739. This latter statement, however, seems inconsistent with what Lord Hailes says about the verse in the Epilogue, for the epitaph must clearly have been written first, and the Epilogue was published in 1738. 2 This epitaph first appeared in Lewis's Miscellany, 1730, with the heading, "Epitaph on Mrs. Elizabeth Corbet." The monument is now in St. Margaret's, Westminster. с с So unaffected, so compos'd a mind; VII. ON THE MONUMENT OF THE HON. ROBERT DIGBY, AND OF HIS SISTER MARY,' ERECTED BY THEIR FATHER, THE LORD DIGBY, IN THE CHURCH OF Go! fair example of untainted youth, Who knew no wish but what the world might hear: Lover of peace, and friend of human kind: Go live! for Heav'n's eternal year is thine, And thou, blest maid! attendant on his doom, Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore, Yet take these tears, mortality's relief, This epitaph first appeared in 10 15 20 20 2 This can scarcely have been the case, for Mary died of small-pox, on the 5th April, 1729. 10 |