l, because the mind is lost in the extent of any
indefinite idea, and cannot be affected with what it cannot comprehend.
When we hear only of a good or great man, we know not in what class to
place him, nor have any notion of his character, distinct from that of a
thousand others; his example can have no effect upon our conduct, as we
have nothing remarkable or eminent to propose to our imitation. The
epitaph composed by Ennius for his own tomb, has both the faults last
mentioned.

Nemo me decoret lacrumis, nec funera fletu
Faxit. Cur?--Volito vivu' per ora virum.

The reader of this epitaph receives scarce any idea from it; he neither
conceives any veneration for the man to whom it belongs, nor is
instructed by what methods this boasted reputation is to be obtained.

Though a sepulchral inscription is professedly a panegyrick, and,
therefore, not confined to historical impartiality, yet it ought always
to be written with regard to truth. No man ought to be commended for
virtues which he never possessed, but whoever is curious to know his
faults must inquire after them in other places; the monuments of the
dead are not intended to perpetuate the memory of crimes, but to exhibit
patterns of virtue. On the tomb of Maecenas his luxury is not to be
mentioned with his munificence, nor is the proscription to find a place
on the monument of Augustus.

The best subject for epitaphs is private virtue; virtue exerted in the
same circumstances in which the bulk of mankind are placed, and which,
therefore, may admit of many imitators. He that has delivered his
country from oppression, or freed the world from ignorance and errour,
can excite the emulation of a very small number; but he that has
repelled the temptations of poverty, and disdained to free himself from
distress, at the expense of his virtue, may animate multitudes, by his
example, to the same firmness of heart and steadiness of resolution.

Of this kind I cannot forbear the mention of two Greek inscriptions; one
upon a man whose writings are well known, the other upon a person whose
memory is preserved only in her epitaph, who both lived in slavery, the
most calamitous estate in human life:

[Greek: Zosimae ae prin eousa mono to somati doulae
Kai to somati nun euren eleutheriaen.]

"Zosima, quae solo fuit olim corpore serva,
Corpore nunc etiam libera facta fuit."

"Zosima, who, in her life, could only have her body enslaved, now
finds h