The criticism upon Pope's Epitaphs, which was printed in "The Universal Visitor," is placed here, being too minute and particular to be inserted in the Life. EVERY art is best taught by example, Nothing contributes more to the cultivation of propriety than remarks on the works of those who have most excelled. I shall therefore endeavour, at this visit, to entertain the young students in poetry with an examination of Pope's Epitaphs. To define an epitaph is useless; every one knows that it is an inscription on a tomb. An epitaph, therefore, implies no particular character of writing, but may be composed in verse or prose. It is indeed commonly panegyrical; because we are seldom distinguished with a stone but by our friends; but it has no rule to restrain or modify it, except this, that it ought not to be longer than common beholders may be expected to have leisure and patience to peruse. I. these imitations with much harshness; in long performances they are scarcely to be avoided, and in shorter they may be indulged, because the train of the composition 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 muses his proper feather. Blest courtier ! Whether a courtier can properly be commended for keeping his ease sacred, may perhaps be disputable. To please king and country, without sacrificing friendship to any change of times, was a very uncommon instance 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 accu rately to the use of the word sacred, which surely should never be applied in a serious composition but where some reference may be made to a higher Being, or where some duty is exacted or On CHARLES Earl of DORSET, in the Church of implied. A man may keep his friendship sacred, Wythyham in Sussex. Dorset, the grace of courts, the muse's pride, The first distich of this epitaph contains a kind of information which few would want, that the man for whom the tomb was erected died. There are indeed some qualities worthy of praise ascribed to the dead, but none that were likely to exempt him from the lot of man, or incline us much to wonder that he should die. What is meant by "judge of nature," is not easy to say. Nature is not the object of human judgment; for it is vain to judge where we cannot alter. If by nature is meant what is commonly called nature by the critics, a just representation of things really existing and actions really performed, nature cannot be properly opposed to art; nature being, in this sense, only the best effect of art. The scourge of pride Of this couplet, the second line is not, what is intended, an illustration of the former. Pride in the great is indeed well enough connected with knaves in state, though knaves is a word rather too ludicrous and light; but the mention of sanctified pride will not lead the thoughts to fops in learning, but rather to some species of tyranny or oppression, something more gloomy and more formidable than foppery. Yet soft his nature This is a high compliment, but was not first bestowed on Dorset by Pope, The next verse is extremely beautiful." Blest satirist! In this distich is another line of which Pope was not the author. I do not mean to blame because promises of friendship are very awful ties; but methinks he cannot, but in a burlesque sense, be said to keep his ease sacred. Blest peer! The blessing ascribed to the peer has no connexion with his peerage; they might happen to any other man whose ancestors were remembered, or whose posterity are likely to be regarded, I know not whether this epitaph be worthy either of the writer or the man entombed. II. On SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL, one of the principal A pleasing form; a firm, yet cautious mind; The In this epitaph, as in many others, there appears, at the first view, a fault which I think scarcely any beauty can compensate, name is omitted. The end of an epitaph is to convey some account of the dead; and to what purpose is any thing told of him whose name is concealed? An epitaph, and a history of a nameless hero, are equally absurd, since the virtues and qualities so recounted in either are scattered at the mercy of fortune to be appropriated by guess. The name, it is true, may be read upon the stone; but what obligation has it to the poet, whose verses wander over the earth and leave their subject 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 subject. He said, perhaps, the best that could is superfluous to tell of him who was sincere, true, and faithful, that he was in honour clear. There seems to be an opposition intended in the fourth line, which is not very obvious: where is the relation between the two positions, that he gained no title, and lost no friend? be said. There are, however, some defects | We may, however, observe some defects. There which were not made necessary by the character is a redundancy of words in the first couplet: it in which he was employed. There is no opposition between an honest courtier and a patriot; for, an honest courtier cannot but be a patriot. It was unsuitable to the nicety required in short compositions to close his verse with the word too every rhyme should be a word of emphasis; nor can this rule be safely neglected, except where the length of the poem makes slight inaccuracies excusable, or allows room for beauties sufficient to overpower the effects of petty faults. At the beginning of the seventh line the word filled is weak and prosaic, 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 conspirator* who died lately in prison after a confinement of more than forty years, without any crime proved against him, the sentiment had been just and pathetical; but why should Trumbull be congratulated upon his liberty, who had never known restraint? III. On the HON. SIMON HARCOURT, only Son of the Lord To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near; How vain is reason! eloquence how weak! This epitaph is principally remarkable for the artful introduction of the name, which is inserted 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 servile imitation. I cannot but wish that of this inscription the two last lines had been omitted, as they take away from the energy what they do not add to the sense. IV. On JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ. JACOBVS CRAGGS, REGI MAGNE BRITANNIE A SECRETIS PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPVLI AMOR ET DELICIE: OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX. Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, Prais'd, wept, and honour'd by the Muse he lov'd! The lines on Craggs were not originally intended for an epitaph; and therefore some faults are to be imputed to the violence with which they are torn from the poem that first contained them. Major Bernardi, who died in Newgate, Sept. 20, 1736. See Gent. Mag. vol. 1. p. 125.-N. It may be proper here to remark the absurdity of joining in the same inscription Latin and English, or verse and prose. If either language be preferable to the other, let that only be used; for no reason can be given why part of the information should be given in one tongue, and part in another, on a tomb more than in any other place, or any other occasion; and to tell all that can be conveniently told in verse, and then to call in the help of prose, has always the appearance of a very artless expedient, or of an attempt unaccomplished. Such an epitaph resembles the conversation of a foreigner, who tells part of his meaning by words, and conveys part by signs. V. Intended for MR. Rowe. Thy relics, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, Of this inscription the chief fault is, that it be- To wish Peace to thy shade is too mythological to be admitted into a Christian temple: the ancient worship has infected almost all our other compositions, and might therefore be contented with life, and let us be serious over the grave. to spare our epitaphs. Let fiction at least cease VI. On MRS. CORBET, Who died of a Cancer in her Breast. So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refin'd, I have always considered this as the most valuable of all Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is a character not discriminated by any shining or eminent peculiarities; yet that which really makes, though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he *This was altered much for the better as it now stands on the monument in the Abbey, erected to Rowe and his daughter.-Warb. In the north aisle of the parish church of St. Margaret, Westminster.-H. The ninth line, which is far the strongest and most elegant, is borrowed from Dryden. The conclusion is the same with that on Harcourt, but is here more elegant and better connected. VIII. departs weary and disgusted from the ostenta- | In the eight fines which make the character of tious, the volatile, and the vain. Of such a Digby, there is scarce any thought, or word, character, which the dull overlook, and the gay which may not be found in the other epitaphs. despise, it was fit that the value should be made known, and the dignity established. Domestic virtue, as it is exerted without great occasions, or conspicuous consequences, in an even unnoted tenor, required the genius of Pope to display it in such a manner as might attract regard, and enforce reverence. Who can forbear to lament that this amiable woman has no name in the verses ? If the particular lines of this inscription be examined, it will appear less faulty than the rest. There is scarcely one line taken from common-places, unless it be that in which only virtue is said to be our own. I once heard a lady of great beauty and elegance object to the fourth line, that it contained an unnatural and incredible panegyric. Of this let the ladies judge. VII. On the Monument of the HON. ROBERT DIGBY, and Go! fair example of untainted youth, Who knew no wish but what the world might hear: On SIR GODFREY KNELLER. Kneller, by Heav'n, and not a master taught, Living, great nature fear'd he might outvie Of this epitaph the first couplet is good, the second not bad, the third is deformed with a broken metaphor, the word crowned not being applicable to the honours or the lays; and the fourth is not only borrowed from the epitaph on Raphael, but of a very harsh construction. IX. On GENERAL HENRY WITHERS. Here, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind! Withers, adieu! yet not with thee remove The epitaph on Withers affords another instance of common-places, though somewhat diversified by mingled qualities and the peculiarity of a profession. 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! 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! This epitaph contains of the brother only a general indiscriminate character, and of the sisThe second couplet is abrupt, general, and ter tells nothing but that she died. The diffi- unpleasing; exclamation seldom succeeds in our culty in writing epitaphs is to give a particular language; and, I think, it may be observed that and appropriate praise. This, however, is not the particle O! used at the beginning of the senalways to be performed, whatever be the dili-tence, always offends. gence or ability of the writer; for the greater part of mankind have no character at all, have little that distinguishes them from others, equally good or bad, and therefore nothing can be said of them which may not be applied with equal propriety to a thousand more. It is indeed no great panegyric, that there is inclosed in this tomb one who was born in one year and died in another; yet many useful and amiable lives have been spent which yet leave little materials for any other memorial. These are however not the proper subjects of poetry; and whenever friendship, or any other motive, obliges a poet to write on such subjects, he must be forgiven if he sometimes wanders in generalities, and utters the same praises over different tombs. The scantiness of human praises can scarcely be made more apparent, than by remarking how often Pope has, in the few epitaphs which he composed, found it necessary to borrow from himself. The fourteen epitaphs which he has written, comprise about a hundred and forty lines, in which there are more repetitions than will easily be found in all the rest of his works. The third couplet is more happy; the value expressed for him, by different sorts of men, raises him to esteem: there is yet something of the common cant of superficial satirists, who suppose that the insincerity of the courtier destroys all his sensations, and that he is equally a dissembler to the living and the dead. At the third couplet I should wish the epitaph to close, but that I should be unwilling to lose the two next lines, which yet are dearly bought if they cannot be retained without the four that follow them. X. On MR. ELIJAH FENTON. At Easthamstead in Berkshire, 1730. This modest stone, what few vain marbles can, May truly say, Here lies an honest man; A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate, Whom Heav'n kept sacred from the proud and great; The first couplet of this epitaph is borrowed | taph, supposed to be lamented; and therefore from Crashaw. The four next lines contain a this general lamentation does no honour to Gay. species of praise peculiar, original, and just.— The first eight lines have no grammar; the Here, therefore, the inscription should have adjectives are without any substantive, and the ended, the latter part containing nothing but epithets without a subject. what is common to every man who is wise and good. The character of Fenton was so amiable, that I cannot forbear to wish for some poet or biographer to display it more fully for the advantage of posterity. If he did not stand in the first rank of genius, he may claim a place in the second; and, whatever criticism may object to his writings, censure could find very little to blame in his life. XI. On MR. GAY. In Westminster Abbey, 1732. Of manners gentle, of affections mild; With native humour temp'ring virtuous rage, The thought in the last line, that Gay is buried in the bosoms of the worthy and the good, who are distinguished only to lengthen the line, is so dark that few understand it; and so harsh. when it is explained, that still fewer approve. XII. Intended for SIR ISAAC NEWTON. ISAACUS NEWTONIUS: Quem Immortalem Testantur, Tempus, Natura, Caium, Hoc marmor fatetur. Nature and Nature's laws, lay hid in night, God said, Let Newton be! And all was ligh.. Of this epitaph, short as it is, the faults seem not to be very few. Why part should be Latin, and part English, it is not easy to discover. In the Latin the opposition of Immortalis and Mortalis is a mere sound or a mere quibble; he is not immortal in any sense contrary to that in which he is mortal. In the verses the thought is obvious, and the words night and light are too nearly allied. XIII. And uncorrupted, e'en among the great; A safe companion and an easy friend, Unblam'd through 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 Gay. As Gay was the favourite of our author, this epitaph was probably written with an uncommon degree of attention; yet it is not more successfully executed than the rest, for it will not On EDMUND DUKE of BUCKINGHAM, who died in always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labour. The same observation may be extended to all works of imagination, which are often influenced by causes wholly out of the performer's power, by hints of which he perceives not the origin, by sudden elevations of mind which he cannot produce himself, and which sometimes rise when he expects them least. the 19th Year of his Age, 1735. If modest youth with cool reflection crown'd, And every opening virtue blooming round, Could save a parent's justest pride from fate, Or add one patriot to a sinking state; This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear, Or sadly told how many hopes lie here! The living virtue now had shone approv'd, The senate heard him, and his country lov'd. Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame, Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham: In whom a race, for courage fam'd and art, Ends in the milder merit of the heart: And, chiefs or sages long to Britain giv'n, Pays the last tribute of a saint to Heav'n." That Gay was a man in wit is a very frigid This epitaph Mr. Warburton prefers to the commendation; to have the wit of a man is not rest; but I know not for what reason. To crown much for a poet. The wit of man,* and the with reflection is surely a mode of speech apsimplicity of a child, make a poor and vulgar con-proaching to nonsense. Opening virtues bloomtrast, and raise no ideas of excellence either intellectual or moral. The two parts of the first line are only echoes of each other; gentle manners and mild affections, if they mean any thing, must mean the same. ing round is something like tautology; the six following lines are poor and prosaic. Art is In the next couplet rage is less properly intro- another couplet used for arts, that a rhyme may duced after the mention of mildness and gentle-be had to heart. The six last lines are the best, ness, which are made the constituents of his cha- but not excellent. racter; for a man so mild and gentle to temper his rage was not difficult. The next line is inharmonious in its sound and mean in its conception; the opposition is obvious, and the word lash, used absolutely, and without any modification, is gross and improper. To be above temptation in poverty, and free from corruption among the great, is indeed such a peculiarity as deserved notice. But to be a safe companion is a praise merely negative, arising not from possession of virtue, but the absence of vice, and that one of the most odious. The rest of his sepulchral performances hardly deserve the notice of criticism. The contemptíble "Dialogue" between HE and SHE should have been suppressed for the author's sake. In his last epitaph on himself, in which he attempts to be jocular upon one of the few things that make wise men serious, he confounds the living man with the dead : Under this stone, or under this sill, When a man is once buried, the question, unAs little can be added to his character by as- forgot that, though he wrote the epitaph in a der what he is buried, is easily decided. He serting that he was lamented in his end. Every state of uncertainty, yet it could not be laid over man that dies is, at least by the writer of his epi-him till his grave was made. Such is the folly “Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child." of wit when it is ill employed. The world has but little Dryden on Mrs. Killigrew.-C. new; even this wretchedness seems to have been borrowed from the following tuneless lines: Ludovici Areosti humantur ossa Sub hoc marmore, vel sub hac humo, seu Nam scire haud potuit futura, sed nec Tanti erat vacuum sibi cadaver Surely Ariosto did not venture to expect that his trifle would have ever had such an illustrious imitator. PITT. CHRISTOPHER PITT, of whom, whatever I shall | relate, more than has been already published, I owe to the kind communication of Dr. Warton, was born in 1699, at Blandford, the son of a physician much esteemed. He was, in 1714, received as a scholar into Winchester College, where he was distinguished by exercises of uncommon elegance, and, at his removal to New College, in 1719, presented to the electors, as the product of his private and voluntary studies, a complete version of Lucan's poem, which he did not then know to have been translated by Rowe. This is an instance of early diligence, which well deserves to be recorded. The suppression of such a work, recommended by such uncommon circumstances, is to be regretted. It is indeed culpable to load libraries with superfluous books; but incitements to early excellence are never superfluous, and from this example the danger is not great of many imitations. When he had resided at his college three years, he was presented to the rectory of P'impern, in Dorsetshire, (1722,) by his relation, Mr. Pitt, of Stratfield Say, in Hampshire; and, resigning his fellowship, continued at Oxford two years longer, till he became master of arts, (1724.) He probably about this time translated Vida's "Art of Poetry," which Tristram's splendid edition had then made popular. In this translation he distinguished himself, both by its general elegance, and by the skilful adaptation of his numbers to the images expressed; a beauty which Vida has with great ardour enforced and exemplified. He then retired to his living, a place very pleasing by its situation, and therefore likely to excite the imagination of a poet; where he passed the rest of his life, reverenced for his virtue, and beloved for the softness of his temper, and the easiness of his manners. Before strangers he had something of the scholar's timidity or distrust; but, when he became familiar, he was, in a very high degree, cheerful and entertaining. His general benevolence procured general respect; and he passed a life placid and honourable, neither too great for the kindness of the low, nor too low for the notice of the great. AT what time he composed his "Miscellany," published in 1727, it is not easy or necessary to know those which have dates appear to have been very early productions; and I have not observed that any rise above mediocrity. The success of his "Vida" animated him to a higher undertaking; and in his thirtieth year he published a version of the first book of the "Eneid." This being, I suppose, commended by his friends, he some time afterwards added three or four more, with an advertisement, in which he represents himself as translating with great indifference, and with a progress of which himself was hardly conscious. This can hardly be true, and, if true, is nothing to the reader. At last, without any further contention with his modesty, or any awe of the name of Dryden, he gave us a complete English "Eneid,” which I am sorry not to see joined in this publication with his other poems.* It would have been pleasing to have an opportunity of comparing the two best translations that perhaps were ever produced by one nation of the same author. Pitt, engaging as a rival with Dryden, naturally observed his failures, and avoided them; and, as he wrote after Pope's “Iliad,” he had an example of an exact, equable, and splendid versification. With these advantages, seconded by great diligence, he might successfully labour particular passages and escape many errors. If the two versions are compared, perhaps the result would be, that Dryden leads the reader forward by his general vigour and sprightliness, and Pitt often stops him to contemplate the excellence of a single couplet: that Dryden's faults are forgotten in the hurry of delight, and that Pitt's beauties are neglected in the languor of a cold and listless perusal; that Pitt pleases the critics, and Dryden the people; that Pitt is quoted, and Dryden read. He did not long enjoy the reputation which this great work deservedly conferred; for he left the world in 1748, and lies buried under a stone at Blandford, on which is this inscription: In Memory of for his talents in poetry; and yet more For the universal candour of his mind, and the primitive simplicity of his manners. He lived innocent; and died beloved, Apr. 13, 1749. Aged 48. * It has since been added to the collection |