III.
ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT,
Only Son of the Lord Chancellor HARCOURT; at the Church of Stanton-Harcourt

in Oxfordshire, 1720.
this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near;

dear;

5

Who ne'er knew Joy, but Friendship might divide,
Or gave his Father Grief but when he died?.

How vain is Reason, Eloquence how weak!
If Pope must tell what_HARCOURT cannot speak.
Oh let thy once-lov'd Friend inscribe thy Stone,
And, with a Father's sorrows, mix his own!

IV.
ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.

In Westminster-Abbey?.

JACOBUS CRAGGS
REGI MAGNÆ BRITANNIÆ A SECRETIS

ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBUS,
PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ÉT DELICIÆ:

VIXIT TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR
ANNOS, HEU PAUCOS, XXXV.

OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX.
Statesman, yet Friend to Truth! of Soul sincere,
In Action faithful, and in Honour clear!
Who broke no Promise, serv'd no private End;
Who gain'd no Title, and who lost no Friend;
Ennobled by Himself, by All approv'd;
Prais’d, wept, and honour'd, by the Muse he lov’d3.

V.
INTENDED FOR MR ROWE,

In Westminster Abbey 4.
'HY relics, Rowe, to this fair Urn we trust,

5

:

Beneath a rudeó and nameless stone he lies,

To which thy Tomb shall guide enquiring eyes 6. 1 These were the very words used by Louis And prais'd unenvied by the Muse he lov'd.' XIV., when his Queen died, 1683; though it is

Roscoe (cf. p. 264). not to be imagined they were copied by Pope. 4 [As to Rowe, see note to Epil. to Jane Warton.

Shore, p. 94.] ? [As to Craggs, v. ante, p. 442. Horace 5 Beneath a rude] The Tomb of Mr Dryden Walpole sent to Sir Horace Mann a very ill- was erected upon this hint by the Duke of Bucknatured epitaph on the same Craggs, whose ingham; to which was originally intended this father had been a footman: 'Here lies the last, Epitaph, who died before the first of his family.' (Jesse.) This Sheffield rais'd. The sacred Dust below As Craggs's death alone arrested the enquiry into Was DRYDEN once: The rest who does not the charge of peculation brought against him in know? connexion wi the South Sea frauds (his father which the Author since changed into the plain committing suicide shortly afterwards) the praise inscription now upon it, being only the name of in the third line of Pope's Epitaph is singularly that great Poet. bold.)

J. DRYDEN. 3 These verses were originally the conclusion Natus Aug. 9, 1631. Mortuus Maij 1, 1700. of the Epistle to Mr Addison on his Dialogue JOANNES SHEFFIELD DUX BUCKINGHAMIENSIS on Medals, and were adopted as an Epitaph by

P. an alteration in the last line, which in the Epistle 6 [The above epitaph was subsequently altered stood

by Pope, the following lines being added:

POSUIT.

H

VI.
ON MRS CORBET,
Who died of a Cancer in her Breast?.
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,
Convinc'd that Virtue only is our own.
So unaffected, so compos'd a mind;
So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refin'd;
Heav'n, as its purest gold, by Tortures try'd;
The Saint sustain'd it, but the Woman died.

Go

10

VII. 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, 1727%.
"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 pretension great.
Just of thy Word, in ev'ry thought sincere,

5
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,
Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb,
Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore,
Not parted long, and now to part no more!
Go then, where only bliss sincere is known!

13 Go, where to love and to enjoy are one!

Yet take these Tears, Mortality's relief,
And till we share your joys, forgive our grief:
These little rites, a Stone, a Verse, receive;

'Tis all a Father, all a Friend can give! *Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! was the Mrs Corbet who was a sister of Pope's Blest in thy Genius, in thy Love too blest! mother. Carruthers. [Hunter enumerates Mrs One grateful Woman to thy fame supplies Corbet among the Roman Catholic members of

What a whole thankless land to his denies.' the Turner family; and as the notice preceding But further alterations and additions were made the epitaph on the monument speaks of her as in the inscription, until it read as it now stands the daughter of Sir Uvedale Corbett, Bart., it is on the monument in Westminster Abbey to irreconcileable with Hunter's statement.) Rowe and his daughter.]

? [Robert Digby was a frequent correspondThis epitaph is on a monument in St Mar- ent of Pope's during the years 1717 to 1724

He garet's Church, Westminster, where the date of died in 1726; and Pope laments his death in a Mrs Elizabeth Corbet's death is recorded as letter to his brother Edward Digby.)

Mr Hunter conceives that she

20

March ist, 1724.

VIII.
ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER,

In Westminster-Abbey, 17237.
NELLER, by Heav'n, and not a Master, taught,

;

Now for two ages having snatch'd from fate
Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great,
Lies crown'd with Princes' honours, Poets' lays,
Due to his Merit, and brave Thirst of praise.

Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie?
Her works; and dying, fears herself may die.

5

H

IX.
ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS,

In Westminster-Abbey, 17293.
ERE, WITHERS, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind,

Thy Country's friend, but more of human kind.
Oh born to Arms! 0 Worth in Youth approv'd!
Osoft Humanity, in Age belov'd !
For thee the hardy Vet'ran drops a tear,
And the gay Courtier feels the sigh sincere.

WITHERS, adieu! yet not with thee remove
Thy Martial spirit, or thy Social love!
Amidst Corruption, Luxury, and Rage,
Still leave some ancient Virtues to our age:
Nor let us say (those English glories gone)
The last true Briton lies beneath this stone.

5

IO

1 Pope had made Sir Godfrey Kneller, on scended from a military stock, and bred in arms his death-bed, a promise to write his epitaph, in Britain, Dunkirk, and Tangier. Through the which he seems to have performed with relucts whole course of the two last wars of England ance.

He thought it 'the worst thing he ever with France, he served in Ireland, in the Low wrote in his life. (Spence.) Roscoe. [Sir Godfrey Countries, and in Germany: was present in every Kneller was born at Lübeck in 1648, and after battle and at every siege, and distinguished in being introduced by the Duke of Monmouth to all by an activity, a valour and a zeal which King Charles II., filled the office of State- nature gave and honour improved. A love of painter under that monarch and his successors glory and of his country animated and raised up to George I., in whose reign (in 1726) he died.) him above that spirit which the trade of war inX.

ON MR ELIJAH FENTON,
At Easthamstead in Berks, 17301.

THIS modest Stone, what few vain Marbles can?,

:

5

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
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

XI.

ON MR GAY,
In Westminster-Abbey, 1732.

F Manners gentle, of Affections mild ;
With native Humour temp'ring virtuous Rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age :
Above Temptation, in a low Estate,
And uncorrupted, ev'n among the Great:
A safe Companion, and an easy Friend,
Unblam'd thro' Life, lamented in thy End.
These are Thy Honours! not that here thy Bust
Is mix'd with Heroes, or with Kings thy dust;
But that the Worthy and the Good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms— Here lies Gart

* [Elijah Fenton was born in 1683. Fenton, (which Pope placed next in merit to Dryden's together with Broome, wrote part of the transla- St Cecilia) avoids the faults committed by Pope tion of the Odyssey in a style so similar to Pope's in his own 'Pindaric' essay; and his blank that most readers would fail to distinguish be- verse translation of the 11th book of the Odyssey tween the work of the latter and that of his is dignified without heaviness. Fenton's tragedy coadjutors. A survey of Fenton's works shows of Mariamne seems to have owed its success in a striking reproduction on his part of most of part to the judicious suggestions of the author of the species of poetry cultivated by Pope. Fenton Oroonoko.] has a pastoral (Florelio) to correspond to Pope's 2 The modest front of this small floor fourth and favourite Pastoral; a paraphrase of Believe me, reader, can say more the 14th chapter of Isaiah to correspond to Pope's Than many a braver marble can: Messiah; an epistle from Sappho to Phaon, Here lies a truly honest man. Epistles, Prologues, and Translations and Imita- Crashaw, Epitaph upon Mr Ashton. Foknson. tions of Horace. Fenton was a thorough master

3 Cf. 'Hor. Sat. Lib. I. 1. 117-119.

Wake of versification, and excelled Pope in his command field. of a variety of metres. His Ode to Lord Gower * [There is a very striking coincidence between

4

XII.

INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON,

In Westminster-Abbey'.
ISAACUS NEWTONUS:

Quem Immortalem
Testantur Tempus, Natura, Cælum:

Mortalem

Hoc marmor fatetur.
Nature and Nature's Laws lay hid in Night:
GOD said, Let Newton be! and all was Light?.

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.)

DIALOGUE4.

SHE.
ZES, we have liv'd-one pang, and then we part !

May Heav'n, dear Father! now have all thy Heart.
Yet ah! how once we lov'd, remember still,
Till you are dust like me.

НЕ.

Dear Shade! I will:
Then mix this dust with thine- spotless Ghost!
() more than Fortune, Friends, or Country lost !
Is there on Earth one care, one wish beside?
Yes-SAVE MY COUNTRY, HEAV'N,

He said, and died 5.

YES