Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/217

Rh So unaffected, so compos'd a mind, So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refin'd, Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd; The saint sustain'd it, but the woman dy'd.

I have always considered this as the most valuable of all Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is a character not discriminated by any shining or eminent peculiarities; yet that which really makes, though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs weary, and disgusted from the ostentatious, the volatile, and the vain. Of such a character, which the dull overlook, and the gay despise, it was fit that the value should be made known, and the dignity established. Domestic virtue, as it is exerted without great occasions, or conspicuous consequences, in an even unnoted tenor, required the genius of Pope to display it in such a manner as might attract regard, and enforce reverence. Who can forbear, to lament, that this amiable woman has no name in the verses?

If the particular lines of this inscription be examined, it will appear less faulty than the Rh