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XIV.

ON EDMUND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

WHO DIED IN THE NINETEENTH YEAR OF HIS

IF

AGE, 1735.

modest Youth, with cool Reflection crown'd,
And ev'ry op'ning Virtue blooming round,
Could fave a Parent's justest 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 noify Fame
Attend the shade 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 fpeech 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 ufe of the word Patriot.

XV.

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

HEROES and KINGS!

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In peace let one poor Poet fleep,

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

ANOTHER, ON THE SAME†.

INDER 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 still 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 himself," 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 wise 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 Jonfon, becaufe, from their dignified fimplicity, they form a contrast to the laboured elegance of Pope's, and are in themfelves 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 GRAVE CAN BE NO FRIEND OF MINE."

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APPENDIX;

CONSISTING OF

NOTES, BY GILBERT WAKEFIELD, B. A.

CHIEFLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF

PARALLEL PASSAGES.

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