Replies to Minor Queries.
_Countess of Pembroke's Epitaph_ (Vol. iii., p. 307.).--Let me thank
your correspondent MR. GATTY for his information. In order to complete
the history of this inscription, it may be stated that though Gifford is
silent as to Jonson having any claim to it, yet, by admitting it into
his works (vol. viii. p. 337.), he concurs apparently with Whalley and
others, in assigning this "delicate epitaph," as Whalley terms it, to
Jonson, though it "hath never yet been printed with his works." Gifford
considers that Jonson did not "cancel," as it has been alleged, the six
lines, "Marble piles let no man raise," but that he possibly never saw
them. They certainly contradict the preceding ones; admitting that such
a character as the Countess _might_ again appear. These last-mentioned
verses, Gifford adds, were copied from the poems of William Herbert Earl
of Pembroke, "a humble votary of the Muses." This nobleman, whose
amiable character is beautifully drawn by Clarendon, deeply venerated
his excellent mother; he, perhaps, could not feel satisfied in leaving
her praises to be sung by another poet, and therefore added this
well-intended but feeble supplement.