XIV.

ON EDMUND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

WHO DIED IN THE NINETEENTH YEAR OF HIS AGE, 1735.

IF
F modeft Youth, with cool Reflection crown'd,
And ev'ry op'ning Virtue blooming round,
Could fave a Parent's juftest Pride from fate,
Or add one Patriot to a finking state;
This weeping marble had not ask'd thy Tear,
Or fadly told, how many hopes lie here!
The living Virtue now had fhone approv'd,
The Senate heard him, and his Country lov'd.
Yet fofter Honours, and less noisy 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 Sages long to Britain giv❜n,
Pays the last Tribute of a Saint to Heav'n.

5

10

VER. 1. With cool Reflection crown'd,] To crown with reflection, is furely a mode of speech approaching to nonfenfe. Opening virtues, blooming round, is fomething like tautology; the fix following lines are poor and profaic. JOHNSON.

The Duchefs of Buckingham was in league with the Pretender and Atterbury's party. This will explain Pope's use of the word Patriot.

XV.

FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY*.

distance keep:

HEROES

EROES and KINGS!

your

In peace let one poor Poet fleep, Who never flatter'd Folks like you: Let Horace blufh, and Virgil too.

ANOTHER, ON THE SAME†.

UNDER
INDER this Marble, or under this Sill,

Or under this Turf, or e'en what they will;
Whatever an Heir, or a Friend in his ftead,
Or any good creature fhall lay o'er my head,
Lies one who ne'er car'd, and ftill cares not a pin
What they faid, or may fay, of the mortal within:
But, who living and dying, ferene ftill and free,
Trufts in GoD, that as well as he was, he shall be.

NOTES..

Nothing ever illustrated more the "importance of a man to himself," which Pope ridiculed fo much in his Memoirs of P. P. than this Epitaph.

+ Pope (as Dr. Johnfon obferves, with truth) "here attempts

"s

to be jocular upon one of the few things that make wife men "ferious; he confounds the living with the dead."

Poor as the thing itfelf is, he quotes the following lines, from which it appears to be borrowed:

Ludovici Areofti humantur offa

Sub hoc marmore, vel fub hoc humo, feu

Sub

Sub quicquid voluit benignus hæres
Sive hærede benignior comes, feu
Opportunius incidens Viator:
Nam fcire haud potuit futura, fed nec
Tanti erat vacuum fibi cadaver
Ut utnam cuperet parare vivens,
Vivens ifta tamen fibi paravit.
Quæ infcribi voluit fuo fepulchro
Olim fiquod haberetis fepulchrum.

I WILL add fome Mortuary Verses from old Ben Jonson, becaufe, from their dignified fimplicity, they form a contraft to the laboured elegance of Pope's, and are in themselves as manly, as they are pathetic.

On Sir THOMAS ROE.
"I'll not offend thee with a vain tear more!
Glad-mention'd Roe, thou art but gone before,
Whither the world muft follow: and I, now,
Breathe to expect my when, and make my how;
Which, if most gracious Heav'n grant like thine,
WHO WETS MY CRAVE CAN BE NO FRIEND OF MINE."

APPENDIX;

CONSISTING OF

NOTES, BY GILBERT WAKEFIELD, B. A.

CHIEFLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF

PARALLEL PASSAGES.