[To THE EDITOR OF THZ "spscr.kron."] • the Spectator of
March 28th Mr. Macaulay gives the
epitaph composed by Ariosto for himself. It is a curious circumstance that when Pope prepared his own epitaph he directly imitated these poor verses of Ariosto. The lines are, perhaps, not very well known:— " Under this Marble, or under this Sill, Or under this Turf, or e'en what they will ; Whatever an Heir, or a Friend in his stead, Or any good creature shall lay o'er my head, Lies one who ne'er cared, and still cares not a pin What they said, or may say of the mortal within ; But, who living and dying, serene still and free, Trusts in God, that as well as he was, he shall be."
These lines were actually inscribed on the monument in Twickenham Church erected to the poet's memory seventeen years after his death. Warburton was the sinner who did it. Dr. Johnson's criticism on the epitaph is too characteristic to be omitted :— "In his [Pope's] last epitaph on himself, in which he attempts to be jocular upon one of the few things that make wise men serious, he confounds the living man with the dead :— Under this stone or under this sill Or under this turf, Ace.
When a man is once buried, the question under what he is buried is easily decided. He forgot that though he wrote the epitaph in a state of uncertainty, yet it could not be laid over him till his grave was made. Such is the folly of wit when it is ill employed. The world has but little new ; even this wretchedness seems to have been borrowed from the following tuneless lines : [here he quotes eleven of Ariosto's lines]. Surely Ariosto did not venture to expect that his trifle would have ever had such an illustrious imitator."
Weybridge.
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