XV.

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

EROES and KINGS! your diftance keep:

HER

In peace let one poor Poet fleep,

Who never flatter'd Folks like you:
Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.

ANOTHER, ON THE SAME†.

NDER this Marble, or under this Sill,

UNDER

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 ftill cares not a pin What they faid, or may fay, of the mortal within: But, who living and dying, ferene still and free, Trufts in GoD, that as well as he was, he shall be.

NOTES.

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

Pope (as Dr. Johnson obferves, with truth) " here attempts "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, vei 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 Verfes from old Ben Jonfon, 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 moft gracious Heav'n grant like thine,
WHO WETS MY GRAVE CAN BE NO FRIEND OF MINE."

APPEN.

APPENDIX;

CONSISTING OF

NOTES, BY GILBERT WAKEFIELD, B. A.

CHIEFLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF

PARALLEL PASSAGES.