Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/228

224 This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear, Or sadly told how many hopes lie here! The living virtue now had shone approv'd, The senate heard him, and his country lov'd. Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame, Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham: In whom a race, for courage fam'd and art, Ends in the milder merit of the heart: And, chiefs or sages long to Britain given, Pays the last tribute of a saint to heaven.

This epitaph Mr. Warburton prefers to the rest, but I know not for what reason. To crown with reflection is surely a mode of speech approaching to nonsense. Opening virtues blooming round, is something like tautology; the six following lines are poor and prosaick. Art is in another couplet used for arts, that a rhyme may be had to heart. The six last lines are the best, but not excellent.

The rest of his sepulchral performances hardly deserve the notice of criticism. The contemptible "Dialogue" between and  should have been suppressed for the author's sake.

In his last epitaph on himself, in which he attempts to be jocular upon one of the few Rh