Below this marble monument is laid All that heaven wants of this celestial maid. Preserve, O sacred tomb, thy trust consigned; The mold was made on purpose for the mind: And she would lose, if, at the latter day, One atom could be mixed of other clay; Such were the features of her heavenly face, Her limbs were formed with such harmonious grace: So faultless was the frame, as if the whole Had been an emanation of the soul; Which her own inward symmetry revealed, And like a picture shone, in glass annealed; Or like the sun eclipsed, with shaded light; Too piercing, else, to be sustained by sight. Each thought was visible that rolled within; As through a crystal case the figured hours are seen. And heaven did this transparent veil provide, Because she had no guilty thought to hide. All white, a virgin-saint, she sought the skies, For marriage, though it sullies not, it dyes. High though her wit, yet humble was her mind; } As if she could not, or she would not find } How much her worth transcended all her kind. } Yet she had learned so much of heaven below, That when arrived, she scarce had more to know; But only to refresh the former hint, And read her Maker in a fairer print. So pious, as she had no time to spare For human thoughts, but was confined to prayer; Yet in such charities she passed the day, 'Twas wondrous how she found an hour to pray. A soul so calm, it knew not ebbs or flows, Which passion could but curl, not discompose. A female softness, with a manly mind; } A daughter duteous, and a sister kind; } In sickness patient, and in death resigned. } UNDER MR MILTON'S PICTURE, BEFORE HIS PARADISE LOST. _This inscription appeared under the engraving prefixed to Tonson's folio edition of the Paradise Lost, published by subscription, under the patronage of Somers, in 1688. Dryden was one of the subscribers. Atterbury, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, was active in procuring subscribers. See a letter of his to Tonson_, MALONE'S Life of Dryden, p. 203. _Mr Malone regards Dryden's hexastich as an amplification of Selvaggi's distich, addressed to Milton while at Rome:_ Græcia Mœonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem, Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem. * * * * * Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn. The first, in loftiness of thought surpassed; The next, in majesty; in both, the last. The force of nature could no further go; To make a third, she joined the former two. ODES, SONGS, AND LYRICAL PIECES. FAREWELL, FAIR ARMIDA. A SONG.