As little can be added to his character, by afferting that he was lamented in his end. Every man that dies is, at least by the writer of his epitaph, fuppofed to be lamented; and therefore this general lamentation does no honour to Gay. The firft eight lines have no grammar; the adjectives are without any fubftantive, and the epithets without a fubject. The thought in the last line, that Gay is buried in the bofoms of the worthy and the good, who are diftinguished only to lengthen the line, is-fo dark that few understand it; and fo harfh, when it is explained, that ftill fewer approve. XII, Intended for Sir ISAAC NEWTON. ISAACUS NEWTONIUS: Quem Immortalem Teftantur, Tempus, Natura, Colum: Hoc marmor fatetur. Nature, and Nature's laws, lay hid in night : Of this epitaph, fhort as it is, the faults feem not to be very few. Why part fhould be Latin, and part English, it is not eafy to difcover. In the Latin the oppofition of Immortalis and Mortalis, is a mere found, or a mere quibble; he is not immortal in any fense contrary to that in which he is mortal. A In the verfes the thought is obvious, and the words night and light are too nearly allied. XIII. On EDMUND Duke of BUCKINGHAM, who died in the 19th Year of bis Age, 1735. If modeft youth, with cool reflection crown'd, This epitaph Mr. Warburton prefers to the reft; but I know not for what reafon. To crown with reflection is furely a mode of fpeech approaching to nonfenfe. Opening virtues blooming round, is fomething like tautology; the fix following lines are poor and profaick, Art is in another couplet used for arts, that a rhyme may be had to heart. The fix laft lines are the best, but not excellent. The rest of his fepulchral performances hardly deferve the notice of criticism. The contemptible Dialogue" between HE and SHE fhould have been fuppreffed for the author's fake, 46 In his laft epitaph on himself, in which he attempts to be jocular upon one of the few things that that make wife men ferious, he confounds the living man with the dead: Under this stone, or under this fill, Or under this turf, &c. When a man is once buried, the queftion, under what he is buried, is easily decided. He forgot that, though he wrote the epitaph in a state of uncertainty, yet it could not be laid over him till his grave was made. Such is the folly of wit when it is ill employed. The world has but little new; even this wretchednefs feems to have been borrowed from the following tunelefs lines: Ludovici Areofti humantur offa Sub hoc marmore, vel fub hac humo, feu Sub quicquid voluit benignus hæres Sive hærede benigníor comes, feu Opportunius incidens Viator: Nam fcire haud potuit futura, fed nec Tanti erat vacuum fibi cadaver Surely Ariofto did not venture to expect that his trifle would have ever had fuch an illuftrious imitator. PITT. CHRISTOPHER PITT, of whom whatever I shall relate, more than has been already publifhed, 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 fcholar into Winchefter College, where he was distinguished by exercises of uncommon elegance, and, at his removal to New College in 1719, prefented to the electors, as the product of his private and voluntary ftudies, a complete verfion of Lucan's poem, which he did not then know to have been tranflated by Rowe, This is an inftance of early diligence which well deferves to be recorded. The fuppreffion of fuch a work, recommended by fuch uncommon circumftances, is to be regretted. It is indeed culpable to load libraries with fuperfluous books; but incitements to early excellence are never fuperfluous, and from this example the danger is not great of many imitations. When he had refided at his college three years, he was presented to the rectory of Pimpern in Dorsetfhire (1722), by his relation, Mr. Pitt of Stratfield Say in Hampshire; and, refigning his fellowship, continued at Oxford two years longer, till he became Mafter of Arts (1724). He probably about this time tranflated "Vida's "Art of Poetry," which Triftram's splendid edition had had then made popular. In this tranflation he diftinguished himself, both by its general elegance, and by the skilful adaptation of his numbers to the images expreffed; a beauty which Vida has with great ardour enforced and exemplified. He then retired to his living, a place very pleafing by its fituation, and therefore likely to excite the imagination of a poet; where he paffed the rest of his life, reverenced for his virtue, and beloved for the foftnefs of his temper and the eafinefs of his manners. Before ftrangers he had fomething of the fcholar's timidity or diftruft; but when he became familiar he was in a very high degree cheerful and entertaining. His general benevolence procured general respect; and he paffed 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 compofed his Mifcellany, published in 1727, it is not eafy or neceffary to know: those which have dates appear to have been very early productions, and I have not obferved that any rife above mediocrity. The fuccefs of his Vida animated him to a higher undertaking; and in his thirtieth year he published a verfion of the first book of the Eneid. This being, I suppose, commended by his friends, he fome time afterwards added three or four more; with an advertifement, in which he reprefents himfelf as tranflating with great indifference, and with a progrefs of which himfelf was hardly confcious. This can hardly be true, and, if true, is nothing to the reader. At last, without any farther contention with his modefty, or any awe of the name of Dryden, he gave |