"Here lies Fred, Who was alive and is dead. Had it been his father, I had much rather; Had it been his brother, Still better than another; Had it been his sister, No one would have missed her; Had it been the whole generation, Still better for the nation. But since it is only Fred, Who was alive and is dead, There's no more to be said." It is curious to contrast this grim suggestion for an epitaph on the dead prince with the stately volume which the University of Oxford issued from the Clarendon Press: "Epicedia Oxoniensia in obitum celsissimi et desideratissimi Frederici Principis Walliae." Here an {277} obsequious vice-chancellor displayed all the splendors of a tinsel Latinity in the affectation of offering a despairing king and father such consolations for his loss as the Oxonian Muses might offer. Here Lord Viscount Stormont, in desperate imitation of Milton, did his best to teach "The mimic Nymph that haunts the winding Verge And oozy current of Parisian Seine" to weep for Frederick. "For well was Fred'rick loved and well deserv'd, His voice was ever sweet, and on his lips Attended ever the alluring grace Of gentle lowliness and social zeal." The hind who labored was to weep for him, and the artificer to ply his varied woof in sullen sadness, and the mariner, "Who many moons Has counted, beating still the foamy Surge, And treads at last the wish'd-for beach, shall stand Appall'd at the sad tale." Here all the learned languages, and not the learned languages alone, contributed their syllables of simulated despair. Many scholastic gentlemen mourned in Greek; James Stillingfleet found vent in Hebrew; Mr. Betts concealed his tears under the cloak of the Syriac speech; George Costard sorrowed in Arabic that might have amazed Abu l'Atahiyeh; Mr. Swinton's learned sock stirred him to Phoenician and Etruscan; and Mr. Evans, full of national fire and the traditions of the bards, delivered himself, and at great length too, in Welsh. The wail of this "Welsh fairy" is the fine flower of this funeral wreath of pedantic and unconscious irony.