But Heaven this lafting monument has wrought,
That mortals may eternally be taught,
Rebellion, though fuccessful, is but vain;
And Kings fo kill'd rife conquerors again.
This truth the royal im age
does proclaim,
Loud as the trumpet of furviving Fame.
OT the brave Macedonian Youth alone; But bafe Caligula, when on the throne, Boundless in power, would make himfelf a God; As if the world depended on his nod.
The Syrian King to beafts was headlong thrown,
Ere to himself he could be mortal known.
The meaneft wretch, if Heaven should give him line,
Would never ftop, till he were thought divine :
All might within difcern the serpent's pride,
If from ourselves nothing ourselves did hide.
Let the proud peacock his gay feathers spread,
And woo the female to his painted bed :
Let winds and feas together rage and fwell:
This nature teaches, and becomes them well.
Pride was not made for men: a confcious fenfe
Of guilt and folly, and their confequence,
Destroys the claim: and to beholders tells,
Here nothing, but the fhape of manhood, dwells.
* Alexander.
+ Nebuchadnezzar.
Ecclus. x. 18.
EPITAPH ON SIR GEORGE SPEKE.
NDER this stone lies virtue, youth,
Unblemish'd probity, and truth:
Juft unto all relations known,
A worthy patriot, pious fon:
Whom neighbouring towns so often fent,
To give their sense in Parliament;
With lives and fortunes trufting one,
Who fo difcreetly us'd his own.
Sober he was, wife, temperate;
Contented with an old estate,
Which no foul avarice did increase,
Nor wanton luxury make lefs.
While yet but young, his father dy'd,
And left him to an happy guide:
Not Lemuel's mother with more care
Did counsel or inftruct her heir;
Or teach with more fuccefs her fon
The vices of the time to fhun.
An heiress fhe; while yet alive,
All that was her's to him did give:
And he just gratitude did fhow
To one that had oblig'd him fo :
Nothing too much for her he thought,
By whom he was fo bred and taught,
So (early made that path to tread,
Which did his youth to honour lead)
His fhort life did a pattern give,
How neighbours, hufbands, friends, fhould live.
The folid interest of mankind.
Approv'd by all, and lov'd fo well,
Though young, like fruit that 's ripe, he fell.
EPITAPH on Colonel CHARLES CAVENDISH.
ERE lies Charles Ca'ndifh: let the marble
That hides his afhes, make his virtue known.
Beauty and valour did his fhort life grace;
The grief and glory of his noble race!
Early abroad he did the world furvey,
As if he knew he had not long to stay :
Saw what great Alexander in the East,
And mighty Julius conquer'd in the West.
Then, with a mind as great as theirs, he came
To find at home occafion for his fame:
Where dark confufion did the nations hide,
And where the juster was the weaker fide.
Two loyal brothers took their Sovereign's part,
Employ'd their wealth, their courage, and their art:
The elder did whole regiments afford;
younger brought his conduct and his fword.
*William Earl of Devonshire.
Born to command, a leader he begun,
And on the rebels lasting honour won :
The Horse, inftructed by their General's worth,
Still made the King victorious in the North:
Where Ca'ndish fought, the Royalists prevail'd;
Neither his courage nor his judgment fail'd:
The current of his victories found no stop,
Till Cromwell came, his party's chiefest prop.
Equal fuccefs had fet these champions high,
And both refolv'd to conquer or to die:
Virtue with rage, fury with valour, ftrove;
But that muft fall which is decreed above!
Cromwell, with odds of number and of fate,
Remov'd this bulwark of the Church and State:
Which the fad iffue of the war declar'd,
And made his task, to ruin both, lefs hard.
So when the bank neglected is o'erthrown,
The boundless torrent does the country drown.
Thus fell the young, the lovely, and the brave;
Strew bays and flowers upon his honour'd grave!
EPITAPH ON THE LADY SEDLEY.
ERE lies the learned Savil's heir;
So early wife, and lafting fair!
That none, except her years they told,
Thought her a child, or thought her old.
All that her father knew, or got,
His art, his wealth, fell to her lot:
And the fo well improv'd that stock,
Both of his knowledge and his flock;
That Wit and Fortune, reconcil'd
In her, upon each other smil'd.
While fhe to every well-taught mind
Was fo propitiously inclin'd,
And gave fuch title to her store,
That none, but th' ignorant, were poor.
The Mufes daily found fupplies,
Both from her hands and from her eyes;
Her bounty did at once engage,
And matchlefs beauty warm their rage.
Such was this dame in calmer days,
Her nation's ornament and praise!
But when a ftorm disturb'd our reft,
The port and refuge of th' oppreft.
This made her fortune understood,
And look'd on as fome public good
So that (her person and her state
Exempted from the common fate)
In all our civil fury she
Stood, like a facred temple, free.
May here her monument stand so,
To credit this rude age! and show
To future times, that even we
Some patterns did of virtue see :
And one fublime example had
Of good, among fo many bad.
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