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EPITAPHS.

ON THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF
PEMBROKE.-Ben Jonson.

UNDERNEATH this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Fair, and wise, and good as she,
Time shall throw his dart at thee.

ON MR. CRAGGS.-Pope.

STATESMAN, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear!

Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end; Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend! Ennobled by himself, by all approv'd,

Prais'd, wept, and honour'd by the Muse he lov'd.

ON MRS. MASON.-Rev. Wm. Mason.

TAKE, sacred earth, all that my soul holds dear, Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave! To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care

Her faded form; she bow'd to taste the wave, And died!-Does youth, does beauty read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breast alarm? Speak, dead Maria, breathe a strain divine;

E'en from the tomb thou shalt have pow'r to charm.

Bid them be chaste, be innocent like thee,
Bid them in duty's path as meekly move;
And if so fair, from vanity as free,

As firm in friendship, and as fond in love, Tell them, tho' 'tis an awful thing to die, 'Twas e'en to thee;-yet the dread path once trod,

Heav'n lifts its everlasting portals high,

And bids the pure in heart behold their GOD.

ON JOHN DUKE OF BRIDGEWATER.

Who died in the 21st year of his Age, 1747-8.— Dr. Cotton.

INTENT to hear, and bounteous to bestow,
A mind that melted at another's woe;
Studious to act the self-approving part,
That midnight-music of the honest heart!
Those silent joys th' illustrious youth possess'd,
Those cloudless sunshines of the spotless breast!
From pride of peerage, and from folly free,
Life's early morn, fair Virtue! gave to thee;
Forbad the tear to steal from Sorrow's eye,
Bade anxious Poverty forget to sigh;
Like Titus, knew the value of a day,
And Want went smiling from his gates away.
The rest were honours borrow'd from the throne;
These honours, EGERTON, were all thy own!

ON AN INFANT.-Rev. Samuel Westley.

BENEATH a sleeping infant lies,
To earth whose body lent;
More glorious shall hereafter rise,

But not more innocent,

When the archangel's trump shall blow,

And souls to bodies join,

What crowds shall wish, their lives below

Had been as short as thine!

BY A GENTLEMAN TO THE MEMORY OF HIS LADY.

FAREWELL, my best belov'd! whose heav'nly mind,

Genius and virtue, strength with softness join'd,
Devotion undebas'd by pride or art,

With meek simplicity and joy of heart;
Tho' sprightly gentle, tho' polite sincere,
And only to thyself a judge severe;
Unblam'd, unequal'd in each sphere of life,
The tenderest daughter, sister, parent, wife;
In thee, their patroness, th' afflicted lost;
Thy friends, their pattern, ornament, and boast;
And I—but ah, can words my loss declare,
Or paint th' extremes of transport and despair!
O thou, beyond what verse or speech can tell,
My guide, my friend, my best belov'd!-Farewell!

ANOTHER.

WHEN Sorrow weeps
o'er Virtue's sacred dust,
Our tears become us, and our grief is just :
Such were the tears he shed, who grateful pays
This last sad tribute of his love and praise;
Who mourns the best of wives and friends combin'd,
Where female softness met a manly mind;
Mourns, but not murmurs, sighs, but not despairs;
Feels as a man, but as a Christian bears.

ON MRS. CLARKE.-Gray.

Lo! where this silent marble weeps,
A friend, a wife, a mother sleeps :
A heart, within whose sacred cell
The peaceful virtues loved to dwell.
Affection warm, and faith sincere,
And soft humanity were there :
In agony, in death resigned,
She felt the wound she left behind.
Her infant image, here below,

Sits smiling on a father's woe:
Whom what awaits, while yet he strays
Along the lonely vale of days?
A pang, to secret sorrow dear;
A sigh; an unavailing tear;
'Till time shall ev'ry grief remove,
With life, with memory, and with love.

ON THE REV. T. CHAMBERLAYNE.

J. Sargent, Esq.

"Go, feed My lambs," the heavenly Shepherd

cried,

"Go, feed My sheep," again that voice replied;

Firm to his trust, a servant here is laid,

Who heard the tender precept and obeyed.

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