The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes

On Charles, earl of Dorset, in the church of Wythyham, in Sussex.

Dorset, the grace of courts, the muse's pride,

Patron of arts, and judge of nature, dy'd,-

The scourge of pride, though sanctify'd or great,

Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state;

Yet soft in nature, though severe his lay,

His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.

Blest satirist! who touch'd the mean so true,

As show'd, vice had his hate and pity too.

Blest courtier! who could king and country please,

Yet sacred kept his friendship, and his ease.

Blest peer! his great forefather's every grace

Reflecting, and reflected on his race;

Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,

And patriots still, or poets, deck the line.

The first distich of this epitaph contains a kind of information which few would want, that the man for whom the tomb was erected, died. There are, indeed, some qualities worthy of praise ascribed to the dead, but none that were likely to exempt him from the lot of man, or incline us much to wonder that he should die. What is meant by "judge of nature," is not easy to say. Nature is not the object of human judgment; for it is vain to judge where we cannot alter. If by nature is meant what is commonly called nature by the criticks, a just representation of things really existing, and actions really performed, nature cannot be properly opposed to art; nature being, in this sense, only the best effect of art.

The scourge of pride-

Of this couplet, the second line is not, what is intended, an illustration of the former. Pride in the great, is, indeed, well enough connected with knaves in state, though knaves is a word rather too ludicrous and light; but the mention of sanctified pride will not lead the thoughts to fops in learning, but rather to some species of tyranny or oppression, something more gloomy and more formidable than foppery.

Yet soft his nature-

This is a high compliment, but was not first bestowed on Dorset by Pope[153]. The next verse is extremely beautiful.

Blest satirist!

In this distich is another line of which Pope was not the author. I do not mean to blame these imitations with much harshness; in long performances they are scarcely to be avoided; and in shorter they may be indulged, because the train of the composition may naturally involve them, or the scantiness of the subject allow little choice. However, what is borrowed is not to be enjoyed as our own; and it is the business of critical justice to give every bird of the muses his proper feather.

Blest courtier!

Whether a courtier can properly be commended for keeping his ease sacred, may, perhaps, be disputable. To please king and country, without sacrificing friendship to any change of times, was a very uncommon instance of prudence or felicity, and deserved to be kept separate from so poor a commendation as care of his ease. I wish our poets would attend a little more accurately to the use of the word sacred, which surely should never be applied in a serious composition, but where some reference may be made to a higher being, or where some duty is exacted, or implied. A man may keep his friendship sacred, because promises of friendship are very awful ties; but, methinks, he cannot, but in a burlesque sense, be said to keep his ease sacred.

Blest peer!

The blessing ascribed to the peer has no connexion with his peerage; they might happen to any other man whose ancestors were remembered, or whose posterity are likely to be regarded.

I know not whether this epitaph be worthy either of the writer or of the man entombed.

On sir William Trumbull, one of the principal secretaries of state to king William the third, who, having resigned his place, died in his retirement at Easthamstead, in Berkshire, 1716.

A pleasing form; a firm, yet cautious mind;

Sincere, though 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 scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth;

A gen'rous faith, from superstition free;

A love to peace, and hate of tyranny;

Such this man was; who now, from earth remov'd,

At length enjoys that liberty he lov'd.

In this epitaph, as in many others, there appears, at the first view, a fault which, I think, scarcely any beauty can compensate. The name is omitted. The end of an epitaph is to convey some account of the dead; and to what purpose is any thing told of him whose name is concealed? An epitaph, and a history of a nameless hero, are equally absurd, since the virtues and qualities so recounted in either are scattered at the mercy of fortune to be appropriated by guess. The name, it is true, may be read upon the stone; but what obligation has it to the poet, whose verses wander over the earth, and leave their subject behind them, and who is forced, like an unskilful painter, to make his purpose known by adventitious help?

This epitaph is wholly without elevation, and contains nothing striking or particular; but the poet is not to be blamed for the defects of his subject. He said, perhaps, the best that could be said. There are, however, some defects which were not made necessary by the character in which he was employed. There is no opposition between an honest courtier and a patriot; for, an honest courtier cannot but be a patriot.

It was unsuitable to the nicety required in short compositions, to close his verse with the word too: every rhyme should be a word of emphasis; nor can this rule be safely neglected, except where the length of the poem makes slight inaccuracies excusable, or allows room for beauties sufficient to overpower the effects of petty faults.

At the beginning of the seventh line the word filled is weak and prosaick, having no particular adaptation to any of the words that follow it.

The thought in the last line is impertinent, having no connexion with the foregoing character, nor with the condition of the man described. Had the epitaph been written on the poor conspirator[154] who died lately in prison, after a confinement of more than forty years, without any crime proved against him, the sentiment had been just and pathetical; but why should Trumbull be congratulated upon his liberty, who had never known restraint?

On the honourable Simon Harcourt, only son of the lord chancellor Harcourt, at the church of Stanton-Harcourt, in Oxfordshire, 1720.

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near,

Here lies the friend most lov'd, the son most dear:

Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,

Or gave his father grief but when he died.

How vain is reason, eloquence how weak!

If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak.

Oh! let thy once-lov'd friend inscribe thy stone,

And with a father's sorrows mix his own!

This epitaph is principally remarkable for the artful introduction of the name, which is inserted with a peculiar felicity, to which chance must concur with genius, which no man can hope to attain twice, and which cannot be copied but with servile imitation.

I cannot but wish that, of this inscription, the two last lines had been omitted, as they take away from the energy what they do not add to the sense.