Thy reliques, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, And, sacred, place by Dryden's awful dust; Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes. Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! Blest in thy genius, in thy love, too, blest! One grateful woman to thy fame supplies What a whole thankless land to his denies. Of this inscription the chief fault is, that it belongs less to Rowe, for whom it is written, than to Dryden, who was buried near him; and, indeed, gives very little information concerning either. To wish "Peace to thy shade," is too mythological to be admitted into a Christian temple: the ancient worship has infected almost all our other compositions, and might, therefore, be contented to spare our epitaphs. Let fiction, at least, cease with life, and let us be serious over the grave. VI. ON MRS. CORBET, _Who died of a cancer in her breast_[155]. Here rests a woman, good without pretence, Blest with plain reason, and with sober sense: No conquest she, but o'er herself, desir'd; No arts essay'd, but not to be admir'd. Passion and pride were to her soul unknown, Convinc'd that virtue only is our own. So unaffected, so compos'd a mind, So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refin'd, Heav'n, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd; The saint sustain'd it, but the woman dy'd. I have always considered this as the most valuable of all Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is a character not discriminated by any shining or eminent peculiarities; yet that which really makes though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs weary and disgusted from the ostentatious, the volatile, and the vain. Of such a character, which the dull overlook, and the gay despise, it was fit that the value should be made known, and the dignity established. Domestick virtue, as it is exerted without great occasions, or conspicuous consequences, in an even unnoted tenour, required the genius of Pope to display it in such a manner as might attract regard, and enforce reverence. Who can forbear to lament that this amiable woman has no name in the verses? If the particular lines of this inscription be examined, it will appear less faulty than the rest. There is scarcely one line taken from commonplaces, unless it be that in which _only virtue_ is said to be our own. I once heard a Jady of great beauty and excellence object to the fourth line, that it contained an unnatural and incredible panegyrick. Of this let the ladies judge. VII. _On the monument of the honourable_ ROBERT DIGBY, _and of his sister MARY, erected by their father the lord_ DIGBY, _in the church of Skerborne, in Dorsetshire, 1727._