XII.
Intended for Sir Isaac Newton.
In Westminster-Abbey.
Isaacus Newtonius:
Quem Immortalem
Testantur, Tempus, Natura, Cælum:
Mortalem
Hoc marmor fatetur.
Nature, and Nature's laws, lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! And all was light.
Of this epitaph, short as it is, the faults seem not to be very few. Why part should be Latin, and part English, it is not easy to discover. In the Latin the opposition of Immortalis and Mortalis, is a mere found, or a mere quibble; he is not immortal in any sense contrary to that in which he is mortal.
In the verses the thought is obvious, and the words night and light are too nearly allied.
XIII.
On Edmund Duke of Buckingham, who died in the 19th Year of his Age, 1735.
If modest youth, with cool reflection crown'd,
And every opening virtue blooming round,
Could save a parent's justest pride from fate,
Or add one patriot to a sinking state;
