VITI.] IrELATs'CnOLY HOUR'!. 301 



only served to cheer the little circle of privacy, still de- 

 served, from their unfrequency, to triumph, at least for 

 a "vvhile, over the power of the grave, it may be interest- 

 ing and salutary in its etfects. To this purpose, however, 

 it is rarely employed. An epitaph-book will seldom 

 supply the exigencies of character ; and men of talents 

 are not always, even in these favoured times, at hand to 

 eternize the virtues of private life. 



The following epitaph, by Mr Hayley, is inscribed on 

 a monument to the memory of Cowper, in the church of 

 East Dereham : 



" Ye, who with warmth the public triumph feel 

 Of talents dignified by sacred zeal ; 

 Here to devotion's bard devoutly just, 

 Pay your fond tribute due to Cooper's dust. 

 England, exulting in his spotless fame, 

 Ranks with her dearest sons his fav'rite name : 

 Sense, Fancy, Wit, conspire not all to raise 

 So clear a title to afiection's praise ; 

 His highest honours to the heart belong ; 

 His Airtues formed the magic of his song." 



" This epitaph," says a periodical critic,* " is simply 

 elegant and appropriately just." I regard this sentence 

 as peculiarly unfortunate, for the epitaph seems to me to 

 be elegant without simplicity and just v;\x.\\oui p>'>^opriety . 

 Xo one will deny that it is correctly written, and that it 

 is not destitute of grace ; but in what consists its simpli- 

 city I am at a loss to imagine. The initial address is 

 laboured and circumlocutory. There is something arti- 

 ficial rather than otherwise in the personification of Eng- 

 land, and her ranking the poet's name " with her dearest 

 sons," instead of with those of her dearest sons, is like 

 ranking poor John Doe with a proper hona fide son of 

 Adam, in a writ of arrest. Sense, fancy, and vfit, " rais- 

 ing a title," and that to " affection's praise," is not very 

 simple, and not over intelligible. Again the epitaph is 

 just because it is strictly true ; but it is by no means, 

 therefore, appropriate. Who that would turn aside to 

 visit the ashes of Cowper, would need to be told that 



* Tlie " Monthly Reviewer." 



