han forty years, without
any crime proved against him, the sentiment had been just and
pathetical; but why should Trumbull be congratulated upon his liberty,
who had never known restraint?

III.

_On the honourable_ SIMON HARCOURT, _only son of the lord chancellor_
HARCOURT, _at the church of Stanton-Harcourt, in Oxfordshire_, 1720.

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near,
Here lies the friend most lov'd, the son most dear:

Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.
How vain is reason, eloquence how weak!
If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak.
Oh! let thy once-lov'd friend inscribe thy stone,
And with a father's sorrows mix his own!

This epitaph is principally remarkable for the artful introduction of
the name, which is inserted with a peculiar felicity, to which chance
must concur with genius, which no man can hope to attain twice, and
which cannot be copied but with servile imitation.

I cannot but wish that, of this inscription, the two last lines had been
omitted, as they take away from the energy what they do not add to the
sense.

IV.

ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.

_In Westminster Abbey._

JACOBVS CRAGGS,
REGI MAGNAE BRITANNIAE A SECRETIS
ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBVS
PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPVLI AMOR ET DELICIAE
VIXIT TITVLIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR,
ANNOS HEV PAVCOS, XXXV.
OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX.

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.

The lines on Craggs were not originally intended for an epitaph; and,
therefore, some faults are to be imputed to the violence with which they
are torn from the poem that first contained them. We may, however,
observe some defects. There is a redundancy of words in the first
couplet: it is superfluous to tell of him, who was _sincere, true_, and
_faithful_, that he was _in honour clear_.

There seems to be an opposition intended in the fourth line, which is
not very obvious: where is the relation between the two positions, that
he _gained no title_ and _lost no friend_?

It may be proper here to remark the absurdity of j