Books: Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope

S >> Samuel Johnson >> Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope

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This epitaph contains of the brother only a general indiscriminate
character, and of the sister tells nothing but that she died. The
difficulty in writing epitaphs is to give a particular and
appropriate praise. This, however, is not always to be performed,
whatever be the diligence or ability of the writer; for the greater
part of mankind HAVE NO CHARACTER AT ALL, have little that
distinguishes them from others, equally good or bad, and therefore
nothing can be said of them which may not be applied with equal
propriety to a thousand more. It is indeed no great panegyric that
there is enclosed in this tomb one who was born in one year, and
died in another; yet many useful and amiable lives have been spent
which yet leave little materials for any other memorial. These are
however not the proper subjects of poetry; and whenever friendship,
or any other motive, obliges a poet to write on such subjects, he
must be forgiven if he sometimes wanders in generalities, and utters
the same praises over different tombs.

The scantiness of human praises can scarcely be made more apparent
than by remarking how often Pope has, in the few epitaphs which he
composed, found it necessary to borrow from himself. The fourteen
epitaphs which he has written comprise about a hundred and forty
lines, in which there are more repetitions than will easily be found
in all the rest of his works. In the eight lines which make the
character of Digby there is scarce any thought or word which may not
be found in the other epitaphs. The ninth line, which is far the
strongest and most elegant, is borrowed from Dryden. The conclusion
is the same with that on Harcourt, but is here more elegant and
better connected.

VIII.

On Sir GODFREY KNELLER, in Westminster Abbey, 1723.

Kneller, by Heaven, and not a master, taught,
Whose art was Nature, and whose pictures thought;
Now for two ages, having snatched from fate
Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great,
Lies crowned with Princes, honours, Poets, lays,
Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise.
Living, great Nature feared he might outvie
Her works; and dying, fears herself may die.

Of this epitaph the first couplet is good, the second not bad, the
third is deformed with a broken metaphor, the word crowned not being
applicable to the honours or the lays, and the fourth is not only
borrowed from the epitaph on Raphael, but of a very harsh
construction.

IX.

On General HENRY WITHERS, in Westminster Abbey, 1729.

Here, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind,
Thy country's friend, but more of human kind.
O born to arms! O worth in youth approved!
O soft humanity in age beloved!
For thee the hardy veteran drops a tear,
And the gay courtier feels the sigh sincere
Withers, adieu! yet not will thee remove
Thy martial spirit, or thy social love!
Amidst corruption, luxury, and rage,
Still leave some ancient virtues to our age:
Nor let us say (those English glories gone)
The last true Briton lies beneath this stone.

The epitaph on Withers affords another instance of commonplaces,
though somewhat diversified by mingled qualities, and the
peculiarity of a profession. The second couplet is abrupt, general,
and unpleasing; exclamation seldom succeeds in our language; and, I
think, it may be observed that the particle O! used at the beginning
of a sentence, always offends. The third couplet is more happy; the
value expressed for him, by different sorts of men, raises him to
esteem; there is yet something of the common cant of superficial
satirists, who suppose that the insincerity of a courtier destroys
all his sensations, and that he is equally a dissembler to the
living and the dead. At the third couplet I should wish the epitaph
to close, but that I should be unwilling to lose the two next lines,
which yet are dearly bought if they cannot be retained without the
four that follow them.

X.

On Mr. ELIJAH FENTON, at Easthamstead in Berkshire, 1730.

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,
May truly say, Here lies an honest man:
A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate,
Whom Heaven kept sacred from the Proud and Great:
Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease,
Content with science in the vale of peace.
Calmly he looked on either life, and here
Saw nothing to regret or there to fear;
From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfied,
Thanked Heaven that he lived, and that he died.

The first couplet of this epitaph is borrowed from Crashaw. The
four next lines contain a species of praise peculiar, original, and
just. Here, therefore, the inscription should have ended, the
latter part containing nothing but what is common to every man who
is wise and good. The character of Fenton was so amiable, that I
cannot forbear to wish for some poet or biographer to display it
more fully for the advantage of posterity. If he did not stand in
the first rank of genius, he may claim a place in the second; and,
whatever criticism may object to his writings, censure could find
very little to blame in his life.

XI.

On Mr. GAY, in Westminster Abbey, 1732.

Of manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit, a muse; simplicity, a child:
With native humour tempering virtuous rage,
Formed to delight at once and lash the age:
Above temptation, in a low estate,
And uncorrupted, ev'n among the Great:
A safe companion and an easy friend,
Unbiased through life, lamented in thy end,
These are thy honours! not that here thy bust
Is mixed with heroes, or with kings thy dust;
But that the worthy and the Good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms--Here lies GAY.

As Gay was the favourite of our author this epitaph was probably
written with an uncommon degree of attention, yet it is not more
successfully executed than the rest, for it will not always happen
that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labour. The same
observation may be extended to all works of imagination, which are
often influenced by causes wholly out of the performer's power, by
hints of which he perceives not the origin, by sudden elevations of
mind which he cannot produce in himself, and which sometimes rise
when he expects them least. The two parts of the first line are
only echoes of each other; GENTLE MANNERS and MILD AFFECTIONS, if
they mean anything, must mean the same.

That Gay was a MAN IN WIT is a very frigid commendation; to have the
wit of a man is not much for a poet. The WIT OF MAN and the
SIMPLICITY OF A CHILD make a poor and vulgar contrast, and raise no
ideas of excellence, either intellectual or moral.

In the next couplet RAGE is less properly introduced after the
mention of MILDNESS and GENTLENESS, which are made the constituents
of his character; for a man so MILD and GENTLE to TEMPER his RAGE
was not difficult. The next line is inharmonious in its sound, and
mean in its conception; the opposition is obvious, and the word LASH
used absolutely, and without any modification, is gross and
improper. To be ABOVE TEMPTATION in poverty and FREE FROM
CORRUPTION AMONG THE GREAT is indeed such a peculiarity as deserved
notice. But to be a SAFE COMPANION is a praise merely negative,
arising not from possession of virtue but the absence of vice, and
that one of the most odious.

As little can be added to his character by asserting that he was
LAMENTED IN HIS END. Every man that dies is, at least by the writer
of his epitaph, supposed to be lamented, and therefore this general
lamentation does no honour to Gay.

The first eight lines have no grammar; the adjectives are without
any substantive, and the epithets without a subject. The thought in
the last line, that Gay is buried in the bosoms of the WORTHY and
GOOD, who are distinguished only to lengthen the line, is so dark
that few understand it, and so harsh, when it is explained, that
still fewer approve.

XII.

Intended for Sir ISAAC NEWTON, in Westminster Abbey.

ISAACUS NEWTONIUS:
Quem Immortalem
Testantur, Tempus, Natura, Coelum:
Mortalem hoc marmor fatetur.
Nature, and Nature's laws, lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! And all was light.

On this epitaph, short as it is, the faults seem not to be very few.
Why part should be Latin and part English it is not easy to
discover. In the Latin the opposition of IMMORTALIS and MORTALIS is
a mere sound, or a mere quibble; he is not IMMORTAL in any sense
contrary to that in which he is MORTAL. In the verses the thought
is obvious, and the words NIGHT and LIGHT are too nearly allied.

XIII.

On EDMUND Duke of BUCKINGHAM, who died in the 19th Year of his Age,
1735.

If modest youth, with cool reflection crowned,
And every opening virtue blooming round,
Could save a parent's justest pride from fate,
Or add one patriot to a sinking state;
This weeping marble had not asked thy tear,
Or sadly told how many hopes lie here!
The living virtue now had shone approved,
The senate heard him, and his country loved.
Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame,
Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham:
In whom a race, for courage famed and art,
Ends in the milder merit of the heart;
And, chiefs or sages long to Britain given,
Pays the last tribute of a saint to heaven.

This epitaph Mr. Warburton prefers to the rest, but I know not for
what reason. To CROWN with REFLECTION is surely a mode of speech
approaching to nonsense. OPENING VIRTUES BLOOMING ROUND is
something like tautology; the six following lines are poor and
prosaic. ART is in another couplet used for ARTS, that a rhyme may
be had to HEART. The six last lines are the best, but not
excellent.

The rest of his sepulchral performances hardly deserve the notice of
criticism. The contemptible dialogue between He and She should have
been suppressed for the author's sake.

In his last epitaph on himself, in which he attempts to be jocular
upon one of the few things that make wise men serious, he confounds
the living man with the dead:

"Under this stone, or under this sill,
Or under this turf, &c."

When a man is once buried, the question, under what he is buried, is
easily decided. He forgot that though he wrote the epitaph in a
state of uncertainty, yet it could not be laid over him till his
grave was made. Such is the folly of wit when it is ill employed.

The world has but little new, even this wretchedness seems to have
been borrowed from the following tuneless lines:-

"Ludovici Areosti humantur ossa
Sub hoc marmore, vel sub hac humo, seu
Sub quicquid voluit benignus haeres
Siv haerede benignior comes, seu
Opportunius incidens Viator:
Nam scire haud potuit futura, sed nec
Tanti erat vacuum sibi cadaver
Ut utnam cuperet parere vivens,
Vivens ista tamen sibi paravit.
Quae inscribi voluit suo sepulchro
Olim siquod haberetis sepulchrum."

Surely Ariosto did not venture to expect that his trifle would have
ever had such an illustrious imitator.

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