Lies crown'd with Princes honours, Poets lays,
Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise.
Living, great Nature fear'd 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 approv'd!
O! soft humanity in age belov'd
For thee the hardy veteran drops a tear,
And the gay courtier feels the sigh sincere.
Withers, adieu! yet not with 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.
