Her comic vein had every charm to please, 'Twas nature's dictates breath'd with nature's ease; Ev'n when her powers sustain'd the tragic load, Full, clear, and just, the harmonious accents flow'd, And the big passions of her feeling heart Burst freely forth, and show'd the mimic art. Oft, on the scene, with colours not her own, She painted vice, and taught us what to shun; One virtuous tract her real life pursu'd, That nobler part was uniformly good; Each duty there to such perfection wrought, That, if the precepts fail'd, the example taught. On a comedian named John Hippisley, interred in the churchyard of Clifton, Gloucestershire, we have the following:-- When the Stage heard that death had struck her John, Gay Comedy her Sables first put on; Laughter lamented that her Fav'rite died, And Mirth herself, ('tis strange) laid down and cry'd. Wit droop'd his head, e'en Humour seem'd to mourn, And solemnly sat pensive o'er his urn. Garrick's epitaph to the memory of James Quin, in Bath Cathedral, is very fine:-- That tongue, which set the table in a roar, And charm'd the public ear, is heard no more; Closed are those eyes, the harbingers of wit, Which spoke, before the tongue, what Shakespeare writ; Cold are those hands, which, living, were stretch'd forth, At friendship's call, to succour modest worth. Here is JAMES QUIN! Deign, reader to be taught, Whate'er thy strength of body, force of thought, In Nature's happiest mould however cast, "To this complexion thou must come at last." We next give an actor's epitaph on an artist. In Chiswick churchyard is Garrick's epitaph on William Hogarth, (died Oct. 29, 1764, aged 67 years) as follows:-- Farewell, great painter of mankind, Who reach'd the noblest point of art, Whose pictured morals charm the mind, And thro' the eye correct the heart. If genius fire thee, reader, stay; If nature touch thee, drop a tear; If neither move thee, turn away, For HOGARTH'S honour'd dust lies here. No marble pomp, or monumental praise, My tomb, this dial--epitaph, these lays; Pride and low mouldering clay but ill agree; Death levels me to beggars--Kings to me. Alive, instruction was my work each day; Dead, I persist instruction to convey; Here, reader, mark, perhaps now in thy prime, The stealthy steps of _never-standing Time_: Thou'lt be what I am--catch the present hour, Employ that well, for that's within thy power. In St. Mary's Church, Beverley, a tablet is placed in remembrance of a notable Yorkshire actor:-- In Memory of SAMUEL BUTLER, A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. Obt. June 15th 1812, Æt. 62.