I. ON CHARLES EARL OF DORSET, D° In the Church of Withyam in Sussex1. (1706.) ORSET, the Grace of the Courts, the Muses' Pride, The scourge of Pride, tho' sanctify'd or great, Of Fops in Learning, and of Knaves in State: 5 As show'd, Vice had his hate and pity too. Blest Courtier! who could King and Country please, Yet sacred keep his Friendships, and his Ease. ΙΟ Blest Peer! his great Forefathers' ev'ry grace Reflecting, and reflected in his Race; Where other BUCKHURSTS2, other DORSETS shine, II. ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBAL, One of the Principal Secretaries of State to King WILLIAM III. who having resigned his Place, died in his Retirement at Easthamsted in Berkshire, 17163. PLEASING Form; a firm, yet cautious Mind; A Sincere, the prudent; constant, yet resign'd: Honour unchang'd, a Principle profest, Fix'd to one side, but mod'rate to the rest: Just to his Prince, and to his Country true: Fill'd with the Sense of Age, the Fire of Youth, A Scorn of wrangling, yet a Zeal for Truth; A gen'rous Faith, from superstition free; Such this Man was; who now, from earth remov'd, [As to Dorset, cf. Imitations of English Poets in Juvenile Poems, p. 183.] 2 [Thomas Sackville, first Lord Buckhurst and first Earl of Dorset, author of the Mirror for Magistrates, and Gorboduc, the first English tragedy, died in 1608. Edward, Earl of Dorset, was a prominent Royalist in the first part of the Civil war, and was, according to Clarendon, distinguished for his wit and learning. His grandson is the subject of Pope's epitaph.] 5 ΤΟ 3 [As to Sir William Trumball, see note to p. 13.] The first six lines of this epitaph were originally written for John Lord Caryll, afterwards Secretary of State to the exiled king James II.; the remainder of the same epitaph on Caryll being inserted in the Epistle to Fervas. Athenæum, July 15th, 1854. III. ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT, Only Son of the Lord Chancellor HARCOURT; at the Church of Stanton-Harcourt T in Oxfordshire, 1720. O this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near; How vain is Reason, Eloquence how weak! IV. ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ. JACOBUS CRAGGS REGI MAGNE BRITANNIE A SECRETIS PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ET DELICIÆ: OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX. 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. THX V. INTENDED FOR MR ROWE, In Westminster Abbey. HY relics, RowE, to this fair Urn we trust, These were the very words used by Louis [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 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 Was DRYDEN once: The rest who does not 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 ΙΟ 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 in Dorsetshire, 17279. O! fair Example of untainted youth, G% Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth: Compos'd in suff'rings, and in joy sedate, Good without noise, without pretension great. Just of thy Word, in ev'ry thought sincere, Who knew no wish but what the world might hear: Of softest manners, unaffected mind, 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! Blest in thy Genius, in thy Love too blest! One grateful Woman to thy fame supplies What a whole thankless land to his denies.' But further alterations and additions were made in the inscription, until it read as it now stands on the monument in Westminster Abbey to Rowe and his daughter.] This epitaph is on a monument in St Margaret's Church, Westminster, where the date of Mrs Elizabeth Corbet's death is recorded as March 1st, 1724. Mr Hunter conceives that she 5 10 15 20 was the Mrs Corbet who was a sister of Pope's mother. Carruthers. [Hunter enumerates Mrs Corbet among the Roman Catholic members of the Turner family; and as the notice preceding the epitaph on the monument speaks of her as the daughter of Sir Uvedale Corbett, Bart., it is irreconcileable with Hunter's statement.] He 2 [Robert Digby was a frequent correspondent of Pope's during the years 1717 to 1724. died in 1726; and Pope laments his death in a letter to his brother Edward Digby.] ance. K VIII. ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER, In Westminster-Abbey, 17231. NELLER, by Heav'n, and not a Master, taught, Whose Art was Nature, and whose Pictures Thought; Now for two ages having snatch'd from fate IX. ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS, bravest, mind, Thy Country's friend, but more of human kind. O soft Humanity, in Age belov'd! For thee the hardy Vet'ran drops a tear, 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 Raphael. Raphael, timuit, quo sospite, vinci Warton. [The following is the prose inscription on General Withers' monument in Westminster Abbey, which is also believed to be by Pope: Henry Withers, Lieutenant-General, de 5 5 ΙΟ 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.] 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 Ease, Content with Science in the Vale of Peace. Calmly he look'd on either Life, and here From Nature's temp'rate feast rose satisfy'd3, 5 Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear; Thank'd Heav'n that he had liv'd, and that he died. IO OF XI. ON MR GAY, In Westminster-Abbey, 1732. F Manners gentle, of Affections mild; 1 [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 (which Pope placed next in merit to Dryden's 2 The modest front of this small floor Crashaw, Epitaph upon Mr Ashton. Johnson. 4 [There is a very striking coincidence between |