so familiar that they
are converted into substantial realities. When I come to the epitaphs of
Chiabrera, I shall perhaps give instances in which I think he has not
written under the impression of this truth; where the poetic imagery
does not elevate, deepen, or refine the human passion, which it ought
always to do or not to act at all, but excludes it. In a far greater
degree are Pope's epitaphs debased by faults into which he could not I
think have fallen if he had written in prose as a plain man and not as a
metrical Wit. I will transcribe from Pope's Epitaphs the one upon Mrs.
Corbet (who died of a cancer), Dr. Johnson having extolled it highly and
pronounced it the best of the collection.

Here rests a woman, good without pretence,
Blest with plain reason and with sober sense;
No conquest she but o'er herself desir'd;
No arts essayed, but not to be admir'd.
Passion and pride were to her soul unknown,
Convinc'd that virtue only is our own.
So unaffected, so compos'd a mind,
So firm yet soft, so strong yet so refin'd,
Heaven as its purest gold by tortures tried,
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.

This _may_ be the best of Pope's Epitaphs; but if the standard which we
have fixed be a just one, it cannot be approved of. First, it must be
observed, that in the epitaphs of this Writer, the true impulse is
wanting, and that his motions must of necessity be feeble. For he has no
other aim than to give a favourable portrait of the character of the
deceased. Now mark the process by which this is performed. Nothing is
represented implicitly, that is, with its accompaniment of
circumstances, or conveyed by its effects. The Author forgets that it is
a living creature that must interest us and not an intellectual
existence, which a mere character is. Insensible to this distinction the
brain of the Writer is set at work to report as flatteringly as he may
of the mind of his subject; the good qualities are separately abstracted
(can it be otherwise than coldly and unfeelingly?) and put together
again as coldly and unfeelingly. The epitaph now before us owes what
exemption it may have from these defects in its general plan to the
excruciating disease of which the lady died; but it is liable to the
same censure, and is, like the rest, further objectionable in this;
namely, that the thoughts have their nature changed and moulded by the
vicious expression in which they are entangle