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fay. Nature is not the object of human judgement; for it is vain to judge where we cannot alter. If by nature is meant, what is commonly called nature by the criticks, a juft reprefentation of things really exifting, and actions really performed, nature cannot be properly opposed to art; nature being, in this fenfe, only the beft effect of art.

The Scourge of pride

Of this couplet, the fecond line is not, what is intended, an illuftration of the former. Pride, in the Great, is indeed well enough connected with knaves in ftate, though knaves is a word rather too lu-. dicrous and light; but the mention of fanctified pride will not lead the thoughts to fops in learning, but rather to fome fpecies of tyranny or oppreffion, fomething more gloomy and more formidable than fop

pery.

Yet foft his nature

This is a high compliment, but was not first beftowed on Dorfet by Pope. The next verfe is extremely beautiful.

Bleft fatyrift!

In this diftich is another line of which Pope was not the author. I do not mean to blame these imitations with much harshness; in long performances they are scarcely to be avoided, and in fhorter they may be indulged, because the train of the compofition may naturally involve them, or the scantiness of the subject allow little choice. However, what is borrowed is not to be enjoyed as our own; and it is the business of critical justice to give every bird of the Mufes his proper feather.

4

Bleft

Bleft courtier!

Whether a courtier can properly be commended for keeping his eafe facred, may perhaps be difputable. To please king and country, without facrificing friendship to any change of times, was a very uncommon inftance of prudence or felicity, and deserved to be kept separate from so poor a commendation as care of his ease. I wish our poets would attend a little more accurately to the use of the word facred, which furely fhould never be applied in a serious compofition, but where fome reference may be made to a higher Being, or where fome duty is exacted or implied. A man may keep his friendship facred, because promises of friendship are very awful ties; but methinks he cannot, but in a burlefque fenfe, be faid to keep his eafe facred.

Bleft peer!

The bleffing afcribed to the peer has no connection with his peerage: they might happen to any other man, whose ancestors were remembered, or whose posterity were likely to be regarded.

I know not whether this epitaph be worthy either of the writer or of the man entombed.

II.

On Sir WILLIAM TRUMBAL, one of the principal Secretaries of State to King WILLIAM III. who, having refigned his place, died in his retirement at Easthamstead in Berkshire, 1716.

A pleafing form, a firm, yet cautious mind,
Sincere, though prudent, conftant, yet refign'd;
Honour unchang'd, a principle profest,

Fix'd to one fide, but moderate to the reft:

An

An honeft courtier, yet a patriot too,
Juft to his prince, and to his country true.
Fill'd with the fenfe of age, the fire of youth,
A fcorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth;
A generous faith, from fuperftition free;
A love to peace, and hate of tyranny;

Such this man was; who now, from earth remov'd
At length enjoys that liberty he lov'd.

In this epitaph, as in many others, there appears, at the first view, a fault which I think scarcely any beauty can compenfate. The name is omitted. The end of an epitaph is to convey fome account of the dead; and to what purpose is any thing told of him whofe name is concealed? An epitaph, and a history of a nameless hero, are equally abfurd, fince the virtues and qualities fo recounted in either are fscattered at the mercy of fortune to be appropriated by guess. The name, it is true, may be read upon the ftone; but what obligation has it to the poet, whose verses wander over the earth, and leave their fubject behind them, and who is forced, like an unskilful painter, to make his purpose known by adventitious help?

This epitaph is wholly without elevation, and contains nothing striking or particular; but the poet is not to be blamed for the defects of his fubject. He faid perhaps the beft that could be faid. There are however, fome defects which were not made neceffary by the character in which he was employed. There is no oppofition between an honest courtier and a patriot; for an honest courtier cannot but be a patriot.

It was unfuitable to the nicety required in fhort compofitions, to clofe his verfe with the word too; every rhyme should be a word of emphafis, nor can

this

this rule be fafely neglected, except where the length of the poem makes flight inaccuracies excufable, or allows room for beauties fufficient to overpower the effects of petty faults.

At the beginning of the seventh line the word filled is weak and profaic, having no particular adaptation to any of the words that follow it.

The thought in the last line is impertinent, having no connexion with the foregoing character, nor with the condition of the man described. Had the epitaph been written on the poor confpirator who died lately

Bernardi. Orig. Edit.

in

The short note above is a proof of Johnfon's unwillingness to furnish information from books not within his reach. The" Bio"graphia Britannica" contains an account of Major Bernardi to the following effect:

John Bernardi, the fon of Count Francis Bernardi, was a steady adherent to James II, at a time when the power of the prince of Orange was daily increafing in this kingdom; afterwards when Capt. Rookwood was feized as one of the confpirators in the Plot to kill king William, Bernardi, who was an old acquaintance of Rookwood's, happening to be in his company, was apprehended with him, and notwithstanding his most folemn proteftations of his total ignorance of the plot, they were both carried to the Counter, and afterwards to Newgate. Rookwood was tried, and convicted of high treafon; but Bernardi, though, as it is faid, he petitioned for it, was never put upon his trial. Some years afterwards the earl of Burlington obtained a promise from the king, that Bernardi fhould, with others who had been committed on the fame account, be difcharged; but the king dying before their enlargement, the earl applied to queen Anne for the fame purpose: fhe too died before any order was made, and an act having pafied in the reign of George I, and another in the reign of George If, for confining them during the royal pleafure, Bernardi did in Newgate, 20th Sept. 1735, after an imprisonment of nearly forty years.

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in prison, after a confinement of more than forty years, without any crime proved against him, the fentiment had been juft and pathetical; but why fhould Trumbal be congratulated upon his liberty, who had never known restraint?

III.

On the Hon. SIMON HARCOURT, only Son of the Lord Chancellor HARCOURT, at the Church of Stanton-Harcourt in Oxfordshire, 1720.

To this fad fhrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near,
Here lies the friend moft lov'd, the fon most dear:
Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,
Or
gave his father grief but when he dy'd.

How vain is reason, eloquence how weak!
If Pope muft tell what Harcourt cannot speak.
Oh, let thy once-lov'd friend inscribe thy stone,
And with a father's forrows mix his own!

This epitaph is principally remarkable for the artful introduction of the name, which is inferted with a peculiar felicity, to which chance must concur with genius, which no man can hope to attain twice, and which cannot be copied but with fervile imitation.

I cannot but wish that, of this infcription, the two laft lines had been omitted, as they take away from the energy what they do not add to the fenfe.

I fhall not difmifs this note without remarking, that the unjust and cruel treatment of this gentleman would fix a ftigma on the character of the best prince, and the best administration that ever ruled a country.

IV.

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