HERE lies my wife; here let her lie!

Now she's at rest, and so am I.33

Dryden.

ON THE MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER.34

HE who in impious times undaunted stood,
And midst rebellion durst be just and good,
Whose arms asserted, and whose sufferings more
Confirm'd the cause for which he fought before,
Rests here, rewarded by a heavenly prince:
For what his earthly could not recompense.
Pray, reader, that such times no more appear:
Or, if they happen, learn true honour here.
Ask of this age's faith and loyalty,

Which, to preserve them, heaven confin'd in thee.
Few subjects could a king like thine deserve :
And fewer, such a king so well could serve.
Blest king, blest subject, whose exalted state
By sufferings rose, and gave the law to fate.
Such souls are rare, but mighty patterns given
To earth, and meant for ornament to heaven.

Dryden.

33 "This has been ascribed to Dryden, as having been intended for his wife; but Mr. Robert Bell has shown that it must be a calumny. Malone has traced the origin of the epitaph to the French:

'C'y gist ma femme: O, qu'elle est bien

Pour son repos-et pour le mien.' "

34 This was the fifth marquis. On the breaking out of that great national strife, the civil war, he fortified Basing House,

ON DRYDEN.35

THIS Sheffield raised, to Dryden's ashes just,—
Here fix'd his name, and there his laurell'd bust;
What else the muse in marble might express
Is known already: praise would make him less.
Bishop Atterbury.

INTENDED FOR DRYDEN.

THIS Sheffield raised. The sacred dust below
Was Dryden once: the rest who does not know?

Pope.

Hants, for the king; and stood a siege of two years before the Parliamentary army took the place. The house, in which the captors found valuables amounting to 300,000l., was burnt to the ground. The marquis survived to 1674, and his loyal faith and courage were acknowledged by Dryden in the above epitaph.

35 John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, died 1720. The monument to Dryden's memory is in Westminster Abbey. Dryden's prose is matchless for its freedom, vigour, variety, and copiousness; and his poetry is correct, harmonious, and strong, particularly his satires. "The English tongue, as it stands at present, is greatly his debtor. He first gave it regular harmony, and discovered its latent powers. It was his pen that formed the Congreves, the Priors, and the Addisons who succeeded him; and had it not been for Dryden we never should have known a Pope, at least in the meridian lustre he now displays. There is, too, in his prose writings, an ease and elegance that have never yet been so well united in works of taste and criticism."-Goldsmith.

ON JOHN CHURCHILL, DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH,

36

OB. 1722.3

IN war's dire chance no sad reverse he found,
Fortune the favourite chief for ever crown'd.

His form here yields to fate! his fame shall grow,
When Mosa or when Ister cease to flow.

Lo! kings and bards their ashes round him blend,
Ambitious once the hero to befriend,

That on the Gaulish tyrant vengeance hurl'd,
The soul of Britain, Europe, and the world.

Part of the translation of the Latin Epitaph in
Westminster Abbey.

With all the praises heaped upon the Duke as a warrior of genius and uninterrupted good fortune, and as a statesman of consummate talent, it must not be forgotten he had his enemies who lashed him with the most cutting satire-foremost amongst whom stands

36 Marlborough was undoubtedly one of the greatest generals and most famous statesmen of this or perhaps any country. He was fortunate and successful in all his campaigns, never losing a single battle. Unhappily, his splendid qualities were mingled with alloy of the most sordid kind. Besides his avarice and fondness for money, in which he was seconded by his celebrated wife, and which led him to urge the English government which he served to continue a war which brought nothing in its train but empty glory and vast expenses; he, a traitor for his own advancement and regardless of the sacrifice of the lives of hundreds of his countrymen, betrayed the secrets of government; and the expedition against Brest was attended

66

Dean Swift, who said of him, he was covetous as hell, and ambitious as the prince of it ;" and from whose pen flowed this biting epigrammatic elegy:

His Grace! impossible! what! dead!

Of old age, too, and in his bed!

And could that mighty warrior fall,
And so inglorious after all?

Well, since he's gone, no matter how,

The last loud trump must wake him now;

And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.

And could he be indeed so old
As by the newspapers we're told?
Three-score, I think, is pretty high;
'Twas time, in conscience, he should die!
This world he cumber'd long enough,
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that's the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a stink.
Behold, his funeral appears,

Nor widows' sighs, nor orphans' tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his hearse:
But what of that? his friends may say,
He had those honours in his day.

with the most disastrous consequences. See Macaulay's "Hist. of England,” vol. iv. p. 63, for a full account of his perfidy. This was the great blot in his career, even if we except his truckling traitorous conduct to James II. as well as William.

True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he died.
Come hither, all ye empty things!
Ye bubbles raised by breath of kings!
Who float upon the tide of state;
Come hither, and behold your fate!
Let Pride be taught by this rebuke
How very mean a thing's a duke,
From all his ill-got honours flung,

Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.

ON GAY," BY HIMSELF.

LIFE is a jest, and all things show it ;
I thought so once, but now I know it.

ON GAY.

WELL then, poor Gay lies underground!

So there's an end of honest Jack.

So little justice here he found,

'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.

Pope.

37 Whatever may be Gay's merits as a poet, he was the originator of a new species of composition; for we owe to him the ballad opera. Dr. Johnson says, "he had not in any degree the mens divinior, the dignity of genius." His Fables are certainly a work of great merit, both as to the quantity of invention employed, and as to the elegance and facility of the execution. Gay was the intimate friend of Pope and Swift, and the Duke and Duchess of Queensbury adopted him as a member of their family. By his "Beggar's Opera," which was a favourite of the town, he gained upwards of 12007.