So when your Slave, at some dear idle time, ON RECEIVING FROM THE RIGHT HON. THE LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY 1 In the first edition it is 'the blush of Parthenissa,' which was the principal designation of Martha Blount in the correspondence of the sisters with James Moore. Carruthers. 2 To enter into the spirit of this address, it is necessary to premise, that the Poet was threatened with a prosecution in the House of Lords, for the two poems entitled the Epilogue to the Satires. On which with great resentment against his enemies, for not being willing to distinguish between 'Grave epistles bringing vice to light' and licentious libels, he began a Third Dialogue, more severe and sublime than the first and second; which being no secret, matters were soon compromised. His enemies agreed to drop the pro 10 secution, and he promised to leave the third Dialogue unfinished and suppressed. This affair occasioned this little beautiful poem, to which it alludes throughout, but more especially in the four last stanzas. Warburton. Lady Frances Shirley was fourth daughter of Earl Ferrers, who had at that time a house at Twickenham. Not withstanding her numerous admirers, she died at Bath, unmarried, in the year 1762. Bowles. [Bowles thinks the Third Dialogue alluded to by Warburton to be the fragment 1740' discovered after Pope's death among his papers by Boling broke; but there is no evidence to support this plausible conjecture.] 3 [Pallas Athene.] 4 A famous toy-shop at Bath. Warburton. 'But, Friend, take heed whom you attack; 'You'd write as smooth again on glass, 'And run, on ivory, so glib, 'Athenian Queen! and sober charms! 'I tell ye, fool, there's nothing in't: 'Come, if you'll be a quiet soul, 20 25 'That dares tell neither Truth nor Lies 4, 30 [No observations would be called for upon these Epitaphs, composed at different periods of Pope's life, were it not that they were subjected to a minute, and indeed a petty, criticism by Dr Johnson, in his Dissertation on the Epitaphs written by Pope, (contributed to a paper called the Universal Visitor in 1756, and afterwards thought worthy of republication in the Idler.) Johnson's criticisms, though occasionally just, are in this instance too thoroughly in the Ricardus Aristarchus style to need quotation. Perhaps the most pointed is that on the Epitaph on Rowe, concerning which Johnson remarks that its chief fault is that it belongs less to Rowe than to Dryden, and indeed gives very little information concerning either.' The Epitaph on Newton, (which he afterwards declared to Mrs Piozzi to be little less than profane, as designed for the tomb of a Christian in a Christian Church,) the Dissertation condemned because the thought is obvious, and the words night and light too nearly allied!' Johnson afterwards remembered (Hayward's Autobiography, &c. of Mrs Piozzi, 11. p. 159) that something like this was said of Aristotle,' but he forgot by whom.' Pope's Epitaphs-with the exception of the charming lines on Gay-only rise above the ordinary level of this class of compo. sition, because that level is so extremely low.] 1 Lambeth; alluding to the Scandal hinted at in Epil. to Satires, Dial. I. v. 120. Carruthers. Warburton. 2 The Dunciad. 4 i. e. If you have neither the courage to write Satire, nor the application to attempt an Epic poem. He was then meditating on such a work. Warburton. I. ON CHARLES EARL OF DORSET, D° In the Church of Withyam in Sussex1. (1706.) ORSET, the Grace of the Courts, the Muses' Pride, 5 Blest Courtier! who could King and Country please, Yet sacred keep his Friendships, and his Ease. Reflecting, and reflected in his Race; Where other BUCKHURSTS2, other DORSETS shine, II. ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBAL, One of the Principal Secretaries of State to King WILLIAM III. who having resigned his Place, died in his Retirement at Easthamsted in Berkshire, 17163. PLEASING Form; a firm, yet cautious Mind; A Sincere, tho' prudent; constant, yet resign'd: Honour unchang'd, a Principle profest, Fix'd to one side, but mod'rate to the rest: An honest Courtier, yet a Patriot too; Just to his Prince, and to his Country true: Fill'd with the Sense of Age, the Fire of Youth, A gen'rous Faith, from superstition free; Such this Man was; who now, from earth remov'd, [As to Dorset, cf. Imitations of English Poets in Juvenile Poems, p. 183.] 2 [Thomas Sackville, first Lord Buckhurst and first Earl of Dorset, author of the Mirror for Magistrates, and Gorboduc, the first English tragedy, died in 1608. Edward, Earl of Dorset, was a prominent Royalist in the first part of the Civil war, and was, according to Clarendon, distinguished for his wit and learning. His grandson is the subject of Pope's epitaph.] 3 [As to Sir William Trumball, see note to p. 13.] The first six lines of this epitaph were originally written for John Lord Caryll, afterwards Secretary of State to the exiled king James II.; the remainder of the same epitaph on Caryll being inserted in the Epistle to fervas. Athenæum, July 15th, 1854. III. ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT, Only Son of the Lord Chancellor HARCOURT; at the Church of Stanton-Harcourt T in Oxfordshire, 1720. O this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near; Here lies the Friend most lov'd, the Son most dear; How vain is Reason, Eloquence how weak! IV. ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ. JACOBUS CRAGGS REGI MAGNÆ BRITANNIE A SECRETIS PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ET DELICIÆ: Statesman, yet Friend to Truth! of Soul sincere, Who broke no Promise, serv'd no private End; Prais'd, wept, and honour'd, by the Muse he lov'd3. V. INTENDED FOR MR ROWE, In Westminster Abbey. HY relics, ROWE, to this fair Urn we trust, THXnd sacred, lace by DRYDEN'S awful dust: Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, 1 These were the very words used by Louis XIV., when his Queen died, 1683; though it is not to be imagined they were copied by Pope. Warton. 2 [As to Craggs, v. ante, P. 442. Horace Walpole sent to Sir Horace Mann a very illnatured epitaph on the same Craggs, whose father had been a footman: Here lies the last, who died before the first of his family.' (Jesse.) As Craggs's death alone arrested the enquiry into the charge of peculation brought against him in connexion with the South Sea frauds (his father committing suicide shortly afterwards) the praise in the third line of Pope's Epitaph is singularly bold.] 3 These verses were originally the conclusion of the Epistle to Mr Addison on his Dialogue on Medals, and were adopted as an Epitaph by an alteration in the last line, which in the Epistle stood 5 5 'And prais'd unenvied by the Muse he lov'd.' Roscoe [cf. p. 264]. 4 [As to Rowe, see note to Epil. to Fane Shore, p. 94.] 5 Beneath a rude] The Tomb of Mr Dryden was erected upon this hint by the Duke of Buckingham; to which was originally intended this Epitaph, This SHEFFIELD rais'd. The sacred Dust below know? which the Author since changed into the plain J. DRYDEN. P. 6 [The above epitaph was subsequently altered by Pope, the following lines being added: H VI. ON MRS CORBET, Who died of a Cancer in her Breast1. ERE rests a Woman, good without pretence, Blest with plain Reason, and with sober Sense: No Conquests she, but o'er herself, desir'd, No Arts essay'd, but not to be admir'd. So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refin'd; VII. 10 ON THE MONUMENT OF THE HONOURABLE ROBERT DIGBY, AND OF HIS SISTER MARY, Erected by their Father, the Lord DIGBY, in the Church of Sherborne in Dorsetshire, 17272. O! fair Example of untainted youth, G% Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth: Compos'd in suff'rings, and in joy sedate, Good without noise, without pretension great. Just of thy Word, in ev'ry 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 Heav'n's Eternal year is thine, Go, and exalt thy Moral to Divine. And thou, blest Maid! attendant on his doom, Yet take these Tears, Mortality's relief, 'Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! Blest in thy Genius, in thy Love too blest! One grateful Woman to thy fame supplies What a whole thankless land to his denies.' But further alterations and additions were made in the inscription, until it read as it now stands on the monument in Westminster Abbey to Rowe and his daughter.] This epitaph is on a monument in St Mar- 10 was the Mrs Corbet who was a sister of Pope's mother. Carruthers. [Hunter enumerates Mrs Corbet among the Roman Catholic members of the Turner family; and as the notice preceding the epitaph on the monument speaks of her as the daughter of Sir Uvedale Corbett, Bart., it is irreconcileable with Hunter's statement.] He 2 [Robert Digby was a frequent correspond ent of Pope's during the years 1717 to 1724died in 1726; and Pope laments his death in a letter to his brother Edward Digby.] |