A gen'rous faith, from superstition free,

A love to peace, and hate of tyranny:

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

Johnson's objection to omitting the name in epitaphs, is so far well founded, that it will be generally better to insert it. But I cannot consider the omission as "a fault, which scarcely any beauty can compen"sate." ""* The tomb, while it lasts, will probably tell the name: so will the title of the Epitaph, in the Poet's works; which has as fair a chance for enduring, as the lines to which it is prefixed.

The remark on Pope's ill-judged antithesis of

'An honest Courtier, yet a Patriot too.'

I acquiesce in; with the praise to which it is entitled, less for the acuteness of the Criticism, than for the sentiment from which it flowed. The termination of this line is intolerably low and vulgar.

The fourth, eighth, ninth, and tenth lines are very good; but you must wait until the eleventh, to find a key, which rather clumsily opens the construction of the preceding ten.

On the Hon. Simon Harcourt, only son of Lord Chancellor Harcourt.

JOHNSON'S CRITICISM,

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near:
'Here lies the friend most lov'd; the son most dear:

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 loy'd friend inscribe thy stone,
And with a father's sorrows mix his own!'

This Epitaph has much beauty; and, notwithstanding Johnson's wish that the two last lines had been omitted, it may well be contended that they are neither inelegant, uor redundant. The Poet, in the second line, states the relations under which he would consider the deceased. He then proceeds, in the third and fourth, to shew that, as son and friend, he had merited the affection of which he was the object; -and the fourth line (by the way) is tender and affecting. In the next distich he represents the father as overwhelmed and silenced by those sorrows, the energy of which you estimate, by the strength of that reason and eloquence which they have subdued. The parent being thus disqualified for the performance of a task, which it might otherwise be his province to ' undertake,—the two concluding lines state the duty to have devolved upon the Poet; whose grief is not so excessive as to be inarticulate. This couplet is addressed to the spirit of young Harcourt; whom Pope, in a pathetic apostrophe, conjures to accept

from his friend, what his afflicted father was unable to bestow.

The name in the sixth line is, as Johnson has remarked, introduced with peculiar felicity indeed; the fourth assisting to inform you, that Harcourt was the father. Surely the identity of the entombed is thus better ascertained, than if his name had been methodically announced.* An epitaph should speak the idiom of Sorrow; which may be quaint,t-but never can be formal.

See the passage in Johnson's Criticism, referred to in page 277.

† As an interesting specimen of the quaint language and sentiments which sorrow will adopt, see Shakspeare's Richard II. act 3d. sc. 3d. the speech beginning "What must the King do now?"—especially the latter part of it.

NUMBER XXXVI.

SATURDAY, MARCH 12th, 1808.

Corpora dant tumulo; signantque hoc carmine saxum.

OVID.

To kindred earth his body they consign;

And on his tomb inscribe the pious line.

ANON.

On JAMES CRAGGS, Esq. in Westminster-Abbey.

VIXIT TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR,
ANNOS HEV PAVCOS, XXXV.
6 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'd.

Johnson's objection, on account of tautology, to the first couplet in this epitaph, appears to me not quite destitute of foundation. But, though no friend in general to point, I cannot agree in his censure on the fourth line:

"Who gain'd no title; and who lost no friend."

Considering the depravity of mankind, the first part of the line may, with the aid of no extravagant hyperbole, become a commendation; and at least the insinuation contained in the latter part, that he is a gainer upon balance, who, failing to acquire a title, escapes the losing of a friend, involves a generous and pleasing sentiment. Ennobled "by "himself" is also good. On the whole, these lines on Craggs seem entitled to approbation; notwithstanding that violence, for which the Critick makes allowance; and which may have contributed to introduce Latin into the Epitaph. Though as to this junction of Latin and English in the same inscription, I cannot see the objection to circulating, by means of a general language, the situation or character of the deceased, more extensively than could otherwise be done: nor yet to resuming the writer's native tongue,

*

"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. JOHNSON'S CRITICISM.