"One would suppose the poor thresher to have been beneath Swift's notice, but the provocation was great, and the chastisement, such as it was, merited. For though few men had ever less pretensions to poetical genius than Duck, yet the Court party actually set him up as a rival--nay, as superior--to Pope. And the saddest part of the affair was that Duck, in his utter simplicity and ignorance of what really constituted poetry, was led to fancy himself the greatest poet of the age. Consequently, considering that his genius was neglected, and that he was not rewarded according to his poetical deserts by being made the clergyman of an obscure village, he fell into a state of melancholy, which ended in suicide; affording another to the numerous instances of the very great difficulty of doing good. If the well-meaning queen had elevated Duck to the position of farm-bailiff, he might have led a long and happy life, amongst the scenes and the classes of society in which his youth had passed, and thus been spared the pangs of disappointed vanity and misdirected ambition." Says a thoughtful writer, if truth, perspicuity, wit, gravity, and every property pertaining to the ancient or modern epitaph, were ever united in one of terse brevity, it was that made for Burbage, the tragedian, in the days of Shakespeare:-- "Exit BURBAGE." Jerrold, perhaps, with that brevity, which is the soul of wit, trumped the above by his anticipatory epitaph on that excellent man and distinguished historian, Charles Knight:-- "Good KNIGHT." EPITAPHS ON NOTABLE PERSONS. We have under this heading some curious graveyard gleanings on remarkable men and women. Our first is from a tombstone erected in the churchyard of Spofforth, at the cost of Lord Dundas, telling the remarkable career of John Metcalf, better known as "Blind Jack of Knaresborough":-- Here lies JOHN METCALF, one whose infant sight Felt the dark pressure of an endless night; Yet such the fervour of his dauntless mind, His limbs full strung, his spirits unconfined, That, long ere yet life's bolder years began, The sightless efforts marked th' aspiring man; Nor marked in vain--high deeds his manhood dared, And commerce, travel, both his ardour shared. 'Twas his a guide's unerring aid to lend-- O'er trackless wastes to bid new roads extend; And, when rebellion reared her giant size, 'Twas his to burn with patriot enterprise; For parting wife and babes, a pang to feel, Then welcome danger for his country's weal. Reader, like him, exert thy utmost talent given! Reader, like him, adore the bounteous hand of Heaven. He died on the 26th of April, 1801, in the 93rd year of his age.