er pride or gratitude erected; and
the same passions which incited men to such laborious and expensive
methods of preserving their own memory, or that of their benefactors,
would, doubtless, incline them not to neglect any easier means by which
the same ends might be obtained. Nature and reason have dictated to
every nation, that to preserve good actions from oblivion, is both the
interest and duty of mankind: and, therefore, we find no people
acquainted with the use of letters, that omitted to grace the tombs of
their heroes and wise men with panegyrical inscriptions.

To examine, therefore, in what the perfection of epitaphs consists, and
what rules are to be observed in composing them, will be, at least, of
as much use as other critical inquiries; and for assigning a few hours
to such disquisitions, great examples, at least, if not strong reasons,
may be pleaded.

An epitaph, as the word itself implies, is an inscription on a tomb,
and, in its most extensive import, may admit, indiscriminately, satire
or praise. But as malice has seldom produced monuments of defamation,
and the tombs, hitherto raised, have been the work of friendship and
benevolence, custom has contracted the original latitude of the word, so
that it signifies, in the general acceptation, an inscription engraven
on a tomb in honour of the person deceased.

As honours are paid to the dead, in order to incite others to the
imitation of their excellencies, the principal intention of epitaphs is
to perpetuate the examples of virtue, that the tomb of a good man may
supply the want of his presence, and veneration for his memory produce
the same effect as the observation of his life. Those epitaphs are,
therefore, the most perfect, which set virtue in the strongest light,
and are best adapted to exalt the readers ideas, and rouse his
emulation.

To this end it is not always necessary to recount the actions of a hero,
or enumerate the writings of a philosopher; to imagine such informations
necessary, is to detract from their characters, or to suppose their
works mortal, or their achievements in danger of being forgotten. The
bare name of such men answers every purpose of a long inscription.

Had only the name of Sir Isaac Newton been subjoined to the design upon
his monument, instead of a long detail of his discoveries, which no
philosopher can want, and which none but a philosopher can understand,
those, by whose direction it was raised, had done more