born to arms! O! worth in
youth approv'd! O! soft humanity in age belov'd! For thee the
hardy vet'ran drops a tear, And the gay courtier feels the sigh
sincere.

Withers, adieu! yet not with thee remove Thy martial spirit, or
thy social love! Amidst corruption, luxury and rage, Still leave
some ancient virtues to our age: Nor let us say (those English
glories gone) The last true Briton lies beneath this stone.

The epitaph on Withers affords another instance of commonplaces, though
somewhat diversified, by mingled qualities, and the peculiarity of a
profession.

The second couplet is abrupt, general, and unpleasing; exclamation
seldom succeeds in our language; and, I think, it may be observed, that
the particle O! used at the beginning of a sentence, always offends.

The third couplet is more happy; the value expressed for him, by
different sorts of men, raises him to esteem; there is yet something of
the common cant of superficial satirists, who suppose that the
insincerity of a courtier destroys all his sensations, and that he is
equally a dissembler to the living and the dead[156].

At the third couplet I should wish the epitaph to close, but that I
should be unwilling to lose the two next lines, which yet are dearly
bought if they cannot be retained without the four that follow them.

X.

ON MR. ELIJAH FENTON.

_At Easthamstead, in Berkshire, 1730._

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,
May truly say, here lies an honest man:
A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate,
Whom heav'n kept sacred from the proud and great:
Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease,
Content with science in the vale of peace.
Calmly he look'd on either life, and here
Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear;
From nature's temp'rate feast rose satisfy'd,
Thank'd heav'n that he liv'd, and that he dy'd.

The first couplet of this epitaph is borrowed from Crashaw. The four
next lines contain a species of praise, peculiar, original, and just.
Here, therefore, the inscription should have ended, the latter part
containing nothing but what is common to every man who is wise and good.
The character of Fenton was so amiable, that I cannot forbear to wish
for some poet or biographer to display it more fully for the advantage
of posterity. If he did not stand in the first rank of genius, he may
claim a place in the seco