Lives of the English Poets : Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope Part 12

Blest courtier! -

Whether a courtier can properly be commended for keeping his EASE SACRED, may perhaps be disputable. To please king and country without sacrificing friends.h.i.+p to any change of times was a very uncommon instance of prudence or felicity, and deserved to be kept separate from so poor a commendation as care of his ease. I wish our poets would attend a little more accurately to the use of the word SACRED, which surely should never be applied in a serious composition, but where some reference may be made to a higher Being, or where some duty is exacted or implied. A man may keep his friends.h.i.+p sacred, because promises of friends.h.i.+p are very awful ties; but methinks he cannot, but in a burlesque sense, be said to keep his ease SACRED.

Blest peer! -

The blessing ascribed to the PEER has no connection with his peerage; they might happen to any other man whose posterity were likely to be regarded.

I know not whether this epitaph be worthy either of the writer or the man entombed.

II.

On Sir WILLIAM TRUMBULL, one of the princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State to King WILLIAM III., who, having resigned his place, died in his retirement at Easthamstead, in Berks.h.i.+re, 1716.

A pleasing form, a firm, yet cautious mind, Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resigned; Honour unchanged, a principle profest.

Fixed to one side, but moderate to the rest; An honest courtier, yet a patriot too, Just to his prince, and to his country true; Filled with the sense of age, the fire of youth, A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth; A generous faith, from superst.i.tion free; A love to peace, and hate of tyranny; Such this man was; who new from earth removed At length enjoys that liberty he loved.

In this epitaph, as in many others, there appears at the first view a fault which I think scarcely any beauty can compensate. The name is omitted. The end of an epitaph is to convey some account of the dead; and to what purpose is anything told of him whose name is concealed? An epitaph, and a history of a nameless hero, are equally absurd, since the virtues and qualities so recounted in either are scattered at the mercy of fortune to be appropriated by guess. The name, it is true, may be read upon the stone; but what obligation has it to the poet, whose verses wander over the earth and leave their subject behind them, and who is forced, like an unskilful painter, to make his purpose known by advent.i.tious help?

This epitaph is wholly without elevation, and contains nothing striking or particular; but the poet is not to be blamed for the defect of his subject. He said perhaps the best that could be said.

There are, however, some defects which were not made necessary by the character in which he was employed. There is no opposition between an HONEST COURTIER and a PATRIOT; for an HONEST, COURTIER cannot but be a PATRIOT. It was unsuitable to the nicety required in short compositions to close his verse with the word TOO; every rhyme should be a word of emphasis: nor can this rule be safely neglected, except where the length of the poem makes slight inaccuracies excusable, or allows room for beauties sufficient to overpower the effects of petty faults.

At the beginning of the seventh line the word FILLED is weak and prosaic, having no particular adaptation to any of the words that follow it. The thought in the last line is impertinent, having no connection with the foregoing character, nor with the condition of the man described. Had the epitaph been written on the poor conspirator who died lately in prison, after a confinement of more than forty years, without any crime proved against him, the sentiment had been just and pathetical; but why should Trumbull be congratulated upon his liberty who had never known restraint?

III.

On the Hon. SIMON HARCOURT, only son of the Lord Chancellor HARCOURT, at the Church of Stanton-Harcourt in Oxfords.h.i.+re, 1720.

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near, Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear; Who ne'er knew joy, but friends.h.i.+p 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-loved friend inscribe thy stone, And with a father's sorrows mix his own!

This epitaph is princ.i.p.ally remarkable for the artful introduction of the name, which is inserted with a peculiar felicity, to which chance must concur with genius, which no man can hope to attain twice, and which cannot be copied but with servile imitation. I cannot but wish that, of this inscription, the two last lines had been omitted, as they take away from the energy what they do not add to the sense.

IV.

On JAMES CRAGGS, Esq., in Westminster Abbey.

JACOBVS CRAGS, REGI MAGNAE BRITANNIAE A SECRETIS ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBVS, PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPVLI AMOR ET DELICIAE: VIXIT t.i.tLIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR ANNOS HEV PAVCOS, x.x.xV.

OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX.

Statesman, yet friend to truth; of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear!

Who broke no premise, served no private end, Who gained no t.i.tle, and who lost no friend; Enn.o.bled by himself, by all approved, Praised, wept, and honoured by the Muse he loved.

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 poems that first contained them. We may, however, observe some defects. There is a redundancy of words in the first couplet: it is superfluous to tell of him, who was SINCERE, TRUE, and FAITHFUL, that he was IN HONOUR CLEAR. There seems to be an opposition intended in the fourth line, which is not very obvious: where is the relation between the two positions, that he GAINED NO t.i.tLE and LEST NO FRIEND?

It may be proper here to remark the absurdity of joining in the same inscription Latin and English or verse and prose. If either language be preferable to the other, let that only be used; for no reason can be given why part of the information should be given in one tongue, and part in another on a tomb, more than in any other place, or any other occasion; and to tell all that can be conveniently told in verse, and then to call in the help of prose, has always the appearance of a very artless expedient, or of an attempt unaccomplished. Such an epitaph resembles the conversation of a foreigner, who tells part of his meaning by words, and conveys part by signs.

V.

Intended for Mr. ROWE, in Westminster Abbey.

Thy reliques, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, And sacred, place by Dryden's awful dust; Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes.

Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest!

Blest in thy genius, in thy love too blest; One grateful women to thy fame supplies What a whole thankless land to his denies.

Of this inscription the chief fault is that it belongs less to Rowe, for whom it was written, than to Dryden, who was buried near him; and indeed gives very little information concerning either.

To wish PEACE TO THY SHADE is too mythological to be admitted into a Christian temple: the ancient wors.h.i.+p has infected almost all our other compositions, and might therefore be contented to spare our epitaphs. Let fiction, at least, cease with life, and let us be serious over the grave.

VI.

On Mrs. CORBET, who died of a Cancer in her Breast.

Here rests a woman, good without pretence, Blest with plain reason, and with sober sense; No conquest she, but o'er herself, desired; No arts essayed, but not to be admired.

Pa.s.sion and pride were to her soul unknown, Convinced that Virtue only is our own.

So unaffected, so composed a mind, So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refined, Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures tried; The saint sustained it, but the woman died.

I have always considered this as the most valuable of all Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is a character not discriminated by any s.h.i.+ning or eminent peculiarities; yet that which really makes, though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs weary and disgusted from the ostentatious, the volatile, and the vain. Of such a character, which the dull overlook and the gay despise, it was fit that the value should be made known and the dignity established. Domestic virtue, as it is exerted without great occasions, or conspicuous consequences, in an even unnoted tenor, required the genius of Pope to display it in such a manner as might attract regard and enforce reverence. Who can forbear to lament that this amiable woman has no name in the verses? If the particular lines of this inscription be examined, it will appear less faulty than the rest. There is scarce one line taken from commonplaces, unless it be that in which ONLY VIRTUE is said to be OUR OWN. I once heard a lady of great beauty and excellence object to the fourth line that it contained an unnatural and incredible panegyric. Of this let the ladies judge.

VII.

On the Monument of the Hon. ROBERT DIGBY, and of his Sister MARY, erected by their Father the Lord DIGBY in the church of Sherborne in Dorsets.h.i.+re, 1727

Go! fair example of untainted youth, Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth: Composed in sufferings, and in joy sedate, Good without noise, without pretension great Just of thy word, in every thought sincere, Who knew no wish but what the world might hear: Of softest manners, unaffected mind, Lover of peace, and friend of human kind: Go, live! for heaven's eternal year is thine, Go, and exalt thy mortal to divine.

And thou, blest maid! attendant on his doom.

Pensive hast followed to the silent tomb, Steered the same course to the same quiet sh.o.r.e, Not parted long, and now to part no more!

Go, then, where only bliss sincere is known!

Go, where to love and to enjoy are one!

Yet take these tears, Mortality's relief, And, till we share your joys, forgive our grief: These little rites a stone, a verse receive.

'Tis all a father, all a friend can give!