XV.

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

HEROES and KINGS! your distance keep:
In peace let one poor Poet fleep,

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

ANOTHER, ON THE SAME†.

NDER 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 said, or may fay, of the mortal within:
But, who living and dying, ferene still and free,
Trusts 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. Johnfon obferves, with truth) "here attempts "to be jocular upon one of the few things that make wife men "ferious; he confounds the living with the dead."

Poor as the thing itself is, he quotes the following lines, from which it appears to be borrowed:

Ludovici Areofti humantur offa

Sub hoc marmore, vel fub hoc humo, seu

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 ista tamen fibi paravit.
Quæ infcribi voluit fuo fepulchro
Olim fiquod haberetis fepulchrum.

I WILL add fome Mortuary Verfes from old Ben Jonson, because, from their dignified fimplicity, they form a contraft to the laboured elegance of Pope's, and are in themselves 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."

APPENDIX;

CONSISTING OF

NOTES, BY GILBERT WAKEFIELD, B. A.

CHIEFLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF

PARALLEL PASSAGES.

FF4