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V. INTENDED FOR MR. ROWE,

In Weftminfier-Abbey.

THY relicks, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust,
And facred, place by Dryden's awful duft:
Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies,
To which thy tomb fhall guide inquiring eyes,
Peace to thy gentle fhade, and endless reft!
Bleft in thy genius, in thy love too bleft!
One grateful woman to thy fame fupplies
What a whole thankless land to his denies.

VARIATION.

It is as follows on the monument in the Abbey
erected to Rowe and his daughter.
Thy relicks, Rowe to this fad fhrine we truft,
And near thy Shakspeare place thy honour'd bust,
Oh, next him, skill'd to draw the tender tear,
For never heart felt paffion more fincere;
To nobler fentiment to fire the brave,
For never Briton more difdain'd a flave.
Peace to thy gentle fhade, and endless reft;
Bleft in thy genius, in thy love too blest!
And bleft, that, timely from our fcene remov❜d,
Thy foul enjoys the liberty it lov'd.

To these so mourn'd in death, fo lov'd in life;
The childless parent and the widow'd wife,
With tears infcribes this monumental stone,
That holds their athes and expects her own.

VI.

ON MRS. CORBET,

Who died of a Cancer in ber Breaft.

HERE refts a woman, good without pretence,
Bleft with plain reason, and with fober fenfe:
No conquests fhe, but o'er herself, defir'd,
No arts effay'd, but not to be admir'd.
Paffion and pride were to her foul unknown,
Convinc'd that virtue only is our own.
So unaffected, fo compos'd a mind;
So firm, yet foft; fo ftrong, yet fo refin'd;
Heaven, as its pureft gold, by tortures try'd;
The faint fuftain'd it, but the woman dy'd.

Of softeft manners, unaffected mind,
Lover of peace, and friend of human kind:
Go, live for Heaven's eternal year is thine,
Go, and exalt thy moral to divine.

And thou, blest maid! attendant on his doom,
Penfive haft follow'd to the filent tomb,
Steer'd the fame course to the fame quiet fhore,
Not parted long, and now to part no more!
Go then, where only blifs fincere is known!
Go, where to love and to enjoy are one!

Yet take these tears, mortality's relief, And till we fhare your joys, forgive our grief: Thefe little rites, a ftone, a verse receive; 'Tis all a father, all a friend can give !

VIII.

ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER,
In Weftminfter-Abbey, 1723.

KNELLER, by Heaven, and not a master taught,
Whofe art was nature, and whofe pictures thought;
Now for two ages having fnatch'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.

IX.

ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS,
In Weftminster Abbey, 1729.

HERE, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind!
Thy country's friend, but more of human kind.
Oh born to arms! O worth in youth approv❜d!
O foft humanity, in age belov'd:
For thee, the hardy veteran drops a tear,
And the gay courtier feels the figh fincere.

Withers, Adieu! yet not with thee remove
Thy martial spirit, or thy focial love!
Amidst corruption, luxury, and rage,
Still leave fome ancient virtues to our age;
Nor let us fay (those English glories gone)
The last true Briton lies beneath this ftone.

VII.

On the Monument of the Honourable ROBERT DIGBY, and of bis Sifter MARY, erected by their Father the LORD DIGBY, in the Church of Sherborne, in Dorfetfbire, 1727.

Go! fair example of untainted youth,
Of modeft wisdom, and pacific truth;
Compos'd in fufferings, and in joy fedate,
Good without noife, without pretenfion great.
Juft of thy word, in every thought fincere,
Who knew no with but what the world might
hear:

X.

ON MR. ELIJAH FENTON,

At Eafhamfled, in Berks, 1730. This modeft ftone, what few vain marbles can, May truly fay, Here lies an honeft man: A poet, bleft beyond the poets fate, [great : Whom Heaven kept facred from the proud and Foe to loud praife, and friend to learned cafe, Content with fcience 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 temperate feaft rofe fatisfy'd, Thank'd Heaven that he had liv'd, and that he

dy'd.

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ON MR. GAY.

In Wefiminfter-Abbey, 1732

Or manners gentle, of affections mild;

In wit, a man; fimplicity, a child:

With native humour tempering virtuous rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lafh the age:
Above temptation in a low estate,
And uncorrupted, ev'n among the great:
A fafe 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 duft ;
But that the worthy and the good shall say,
Striking their penfive bofoms-Here lies Gay.

ANOTHER.

WELL then poor Gay lies under ground, So there's an end of honeft Jack:

So little justice here he found,

'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.

XII.

INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON,

In Weftminfer-Abbey.

ISAACUS NEWTONUS:
Quem Immortalem
Teftantur Tempus, Natura, Cœlum:
Mortalem

Hoc marmor fatetur.
Nature, and nature's laws lay hid in night:
God faid, let Newton be! and all was light.

ON EDMOND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM,
Who died in the Nineteenth Year of his Age, 1735.

If modeft youth, with cool reflection crown'd,
And every opening virtue blooming round,
Could fave a parent's jufteft pride from fate,
Or add one patriot to a finking ftate;
This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear,
Or fadly told, how many hopes lie here!
The living virtue now had thone approv❜d,
The fenate heard him, and his country lov'd,
Yet fofter honours, and lefs noify fame
Attend the fhade of gentle Buckingham:
In whom a race, for courage fam'd and art,
Ends in the milder merit of the heart;
And, chiefs or fages long to Britain given,
Pays the last tribute of a faint to Heaven.

XV.

FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WEST
MINSTER-ABBEY.

HEROES and kings! your distance keep!
In peace let one poor poet fleep,
Who never flatter'd folks like you:
Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.

ANOTHER, ON THE SAME. UNDER this marble, or under this fill, Or under this turf, or e'en what they will; Whatever an heir, or a friend in his stead, Or any good creature fhall lay o'er my head, Lies one who ne'er car'd, and still cares not a pin, What they said, or may fay of the mortal within: But who, living and dying, ferene still and free, Trults in God, that as well as he was, he flfall be.

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XVI.

LORD CONINGSBY'S EPITAPH *.

HERE lies Lord Coningsby-be civil;
The reft God knows-fo does the Devil.

XVII.

ON BUTLER'S MONUMENT.
Perhaps by Mr. Pope.

RESPECT to Dryden, Sheffield juftly pay'd,
And noble Villers honour'd Cowley's fhade:
But whence this barber?-that a name fo mean
Should, join'd with Butler's, on a tomb be seen
This pyramid would better far proclaim,
To future ages, humbler Settle's name :
Poet and patron then had been well pair'd,
The city printer, and the city bard.

*This Fpitaph, originally written on Picus Mis randula, is applied to F. Chartres, and printed among the works of Swift.

LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER,

OCCASIONED BY THE

FIRST CORRECT EDITION OF THE DUNCIAD.

Ir is with pleasure I hear, that you have procured a correct copy of the Dunciad, which the many furreptitious ones have rendered so neceffary; and it is yet with more, that I am informed it will be attended with a Commentary: a work fo requifite, that I cannot think the author himself would have omitted it, bad he approved of the first appearance of this poem.

Such notes as have occurred to me, I herewith fend you you will oblige me by inferting them amongst thofe which are, or will be, transmitted to you by others; fince not only the author's friends, but even frangers, appear engaged by humanity, to take fome care of an orphan of fo much genius and fpirit, which its parent feems to have abandoned from the very beginning, and suffered to ftep into the world naked, unguarded, and unattended.

It was upon reading some of the abufive papers lately published, that my great regard to a perfon, whofe friendship I efteem as one of the chief honours of my life, and a much greater refpect to truth, than to him or any man living, engaged me in inquiries, of which the enclofed notes are the fruit.

I perceived, that most of these authors had been (doubtlefs very wifely) the first aggressors. They had tried, till they were weary, what was to be got by railing at each other: nobody was either concerned or furprised, if this or that fcribbler was proved a dunce. But every one was curious to read what could be faid to prove Mr. Pope one, and was ready to pay something for such a difcovery: a fratagem which would they fairly own, it might not only reconcile them to me, but fcreen them from the refentment of their lawful fuperiers, whom they daily abuse, only (as I charitably hope) to get that by them, which they cannot get from them.

I found this was not all: ill fuccefs in that had transported them to perfonal abuse, either of himfelf, or (what I think he could less forgive) of his friends. They had called men of virtue and honour bad men, long before he had either leisure or inclination to call them bad writers: and fome had been fuch old offenders, that he had quite forgotten their perfons as well as their flanders, till they were pleased to revive them.

Now what had Mr. Pope done before, to incenfe them? He had published those works which are in the hands of every body, in which not the leaft mention is made of any of them. And what has he done fince? He has laughed, and written the Dunciad. What has that faid of them? A very serious truth, which the public had faid before, that they were dull: and what it had no fooner faid, but they themselves were at great pains to procure, or even purchase, room in the prints, to teftify under their hands to the truth of it.

I fhould ftill have been filent, if either I had feen any inclination in my friend to be serious with fuch accufers, or if they had only meddled with his writings; fince whoever publishes, puts himself on his trial by his country. But when his moral character was attacked, and in a manner from which neither truth nor virtue can fecure the moft innocent; in a manner, which, though it annihilates the credit of the accufation with the just and impartial, yet aggravates very much the guilt of the accufers; I mean by authors without names; then I thought, fince the danger was common to all, the concern ought to be so; and that it was an act of justice to detect the authors, not only on this account, but as many of them are the fame who for several years paft have made free with the greatest names in church and state, exposed to the world the private misfortunes of families, abused all, even to women, and whose prostituted papers

of their country) have infulted the fallen, the friendlefs, the exiled, and the dead.

(for one or other party, in the unhappy divifions | paleness or leannefs, but against malice and villany. The apothecary in Romeo and Juliet is poor; but is he therefore juftified in vending poifon? Not but poverty itself becomes a just subject of fatire, when it is the confequence of vice, prodigality, or neglect of one's lawful calling; for then it increases the public burden, fills the streets and highways with robbers, and the garrets with clippers, coiners, aed weekly journalists.

Befides this, which I take to be a public concern, I have already confessed I had a private one. | I am one of that number who have long loved and efteemed Mr. Pope; and had often declared it was not his capacity or writings (which we ever thought the least valuable part of his character), but the honest, open, and beneficent man, that we moft efteemed, and loved in him. Now, if what thefe people say were believed, I muft appear to all my friends either a fool, or a knave; either impofed on myself, or impofing on them; so that I am as much interested in the confutation of these calumnies, as he is himself.

I am no author, and confequently not to be fufpected either of jealoufy or resentment against any of the men, of whom fearce one is known to me by fight; and as for their writings, I have fought them (on this one occafion) in vain, in the clofets and libraries of all my acquaintance. I had still been in the dark, if a gentleman had not procured me (I suppose from fome of themselves, for they are generally much more dangerous friends than enemies) the paffages I send you. I folemnly protest I have added nothing to the malice or abfurdity of them; which it behoves me to declare, fince the vouchers themselves will be so soon and fo irrecoverably loft. You may in fome measure prevent it, by preferving at least their titles (a), and difcovering (as far as you can depend on the truth of your information) the names of the concealed authors.

The first objection I have heard made to the poem, is, that the persons are too obfcure for fatise. The perfons themselves, rather than allow the objection, would forgive the fatire; and if one could be tempted to afford it a serious answer, were not all affaffinates, popular infurrections, the infolence of the rabble without doors, and of domestics within, moft wrongfully chaftifed, if the meanness of offenders indemnified them from punishment? On the contrary, obfcurity renders them more dangerous, as lefs thought of: law can pronounce judgment only on open facts: morality alone can pafs cenfure on intentions of mischief; fo that for fecret calumny,, or the arrow flying in the dark, there is no publie punishment left, but what a good writer inflicts.

The next objection is, that these sort of authors are poor. That might be pleaded as an excuse at the Old Bailey, for leffer crimes than defamation (for it is the cafe of almost all who are tried there), but fure it can be none here: for who will pretend that the robbing another of his reputation fupplies the want of it in himself? I question not but fuch authors are poor, and heartily with the objection were removed by any honest livelihood. But poverty is here the accident, not the fubject: he who defcribes malice and villany to be pale and meagre, expreffes not the least anger against

But omitting that two or three of these offend lefs in their morals than in their writings; must poverty make nonfenfe facred? If so, the fame of bad authors would be much better confulted than that of all the good ones in the world; and not one of an hundred had ever been called by his right

name.

They mistake the whole matter: it is not charity to encourage them in the way they follow, but to get them out of it; for men are not bunglers because they are poor, but they are poor becaufe they are bunglers.

Is it not pleasant enough, to hear our authors crying out on the one hand, as if their perfons and characters were too facred for fatire; and the public objecting on the other, that they are too mean even for ridicule? But whether bread or fame be their end, it must be allowed, our author, by and in this poem, has mercifully given them a little of both.

There are two or three, who by their rank and fortune have no benefit from the former objec tions, fuppofing them good; and thefe I was forry to fee in fuch company. But if, without any provocation, two or three gentlemen will fall upon one, in an affair wherein his intereft and reputation are equally embarked; they cannot certainly, after they have been content to print themselves his enemies, complain of being put into the num ber of them.

Others, I am told, pretend to have been once his friends. Surely they are their enemies who fay fo; fince nothing can be more odious than to treat a friend as they have done. But of this I cannot perfuade myself, when I confider the conftant and eternal averfion of all bad writers to a good one.

Such as claim a merit from being his admirers, I would gladly afk, if it lays him under a perfonal obligation? At that rate, he would be the most obliged humble fervant in the world. I dare fwear for these in particular, he never defired them to be his admirers, nor promised in return to be theirs : that had truly been a fign he was of their acquaintance; but would not the malicious world have suspected such an approbation of some motive worse than ignorance, in the author of the Essay on Criticism? Be it as it will, the reafons of their admiration, and of his contempt, are equally subfisting, for his works and theirs are the very fame that they were.

One, therefore, of their affertions I believe may be true, "That he has a contempt for their writ"ings." And there is another which would pro(a) Which we have done in a lift printed in the Ap-bably be fooner allowed by himself than by any pendix. good judge beside, “That his own have found toe

"much fuccefs with the public." But as it cannot,
confift with his modefty to claim this as a juftice,
it lies not on him, but entirely on the public, to
defend its own judgment.

There remains what in my opinion might seem a better plea for thefe people, than any they have made ufe of. If obfcurity or poverty were to exempt a man from fatire, much more fhould folly or dulnefs, which are still more involuntary; nay, as much fo as perfonal deformity. But even this will not help them: deformity becomes an object of ridicule when a man fets up for being handfome; and fo muft dulnefs when he fets up for a wit. They are not ridiculed because ridicule in itfelf is, or ought to be, a pleasure; but because it is juft to undeceive and vindicate the honeft and unpretending part of mankind from imposition, because particular intereft ought to yield to general, and a great number who are not naturally fools, ought never to be made fo, in complaifance to a few who are. Accordingly we find that in all ages, all vain pretenders, were they ever fo poor or ever fo dull, have been conftantly the topics of the most candid fatirifts, from the Codrus of Juvenal to the Damon of Boileau.

Having mentioned Boileau, the greatest poet and most judicious critic of his age and country, admirable for his talents, and yet perhaps more admirable for his judgment in the proper application of them; I cannot help remarking the refemblance betwixt him and our author, in qualities, fame, and fortune; in the diftinctions fhown them by their fuperiors, in the general efteem of their equals, and in their extended reputation amongst foreigners; in the latter of which ours has met with the better fate, as he has had for his tranflators perfons of the most eminent rank and abilities in their respective nations(6). But the resemblance holds in nothing more than in their being equally abufed by the ignorant pretenders to poetry of their times; of which not the least memory will remain but in their own writings, and in the notes made upon them. What Boileau has done in almost all his poems, our author has only in this: I dare anfwer for him, he will do it in no more; and on this principle, of attacking few but who had flandered him, he could not have done it at all, had he been confined from cenfuring obfcure and worthless perfons, for fcarce any other were his enemies. However, as the parity is fo remarkable, I hope it will continue to the last; and if ever he

(b) Effay on Criticism in French verfe, by General Hamilton; the fame, in verfe alfo, by Monfieur Robeton, Counsellor and Privy Secretary to King George 1. after by the Abbé Reynel, in verfe, with notes, Rape of tle Lock, in French, by the Princess of Conti, Paris 1728; and in Italian verfe, by the Abbé Conti, a noble Venetian; and the Marquis Rangoni, Envoy Extraordinary from Modena to King George 11. Others of bis works by Salvini of Florence, &c. His Elays and Differtations on Homer, feveral times tranflated into French. Efay on Man, by the Abbé Reynel, in verse; by Monfieur Silbout, in profe, 1737, and fince by athers in French, Italian, and Latin.

fhould give us an edition of this poem himself, may fee some of them treated as gently, on their repentance or better merit, as Perrault and Quinault were at last by Boileau.

In one point I must be allowed to think the character of our English poet the more amiable. He has not been a follower of fortune or fuccefs; he has lived with the great without flattery; been a friend to men in power, without penfions, from whom, as he asked, so he received no favour, but what was done him in his friends. As his Satires were the more juft for being delayed, fo were his Panegyrics; beftowed only on fuch perfons as he had familiarly known, only for fuch virtues as he had long obferved in them, and only at fuch times as others ceafe to praise, if not begin to calumniate them, I mean when out of power or out of fafhion (c). A fatire, therefore, en writers fo notorious for the contrary practice, became no man fo well as himself; as none, it is plain, was fo little in their friendships, or fo much in that of those whom they had most abufed, namely the greatest and best of all parties. Let me add a further reafon, that, though engaged in their friendships, he never efpoufed their animofities; and can almost fingly challenge this honour, not to have written a line of any man, which, through guilt, through fhame, or through fear, through variety of fortune, or change of interefts, he was ever unwilling to own.

I fhall conclude with remarking, what a pleasure it must be to every reader of humanity, to fee all along, that our author, in his very laughter, is not indulging his own ill-nature, but only punishing that of others. As to his Poem, thofe alone are capable of doing it juftice, who, to use the words of a great writer, know how hard it is (with regard both to his fubject and his manner) "Vetuftis dare novitatem, obfoletis nitorem, ob"fcuris lucem, faftiditis gratiam.

I am your most humble fervant,
ST. JAMES'S,
Dec. 22. 1728.5

WILLIAM CLELAND (4).

claimed against bis book of Poems; Mr Walb, after (c) As Mr. Wycherly, at the time the town de bis death; Sir William Trumball, when be had refigned the office of Secretary of State; Lord Bolingbroke, at bis leaving England, after the queen's death; Lord Oxford, in bis lafi decline of life; Mr. Secretary Craggs, at the end of the South-sea year, and after bis death others only in epitaphs.

university of Utrecht, with the Earl of Mar. He ferved (d) This gentleman was of Scotland, and bred at the made one of the Commiffioners of the Cuftoms in Scotin Spain under Ear! Rivers. After the peace, be was land, and then of taxes in England: in which, bawing bown himself for twenty years diligent, punctual, and incorruptible (though without any other effiflance of fortune), be was fudden'y difplaced by the minifter, in the fixty-eighth year of his age; and died two months after. in 1741. He was a perfon of universal learning, and for bis friend, or a fincerer attachment to the conflitation an enlarged converfation; no man bad a warmer heart of bis country.

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