_On_ CHARLES _Earl of_ DORSET, _in the church of Wythyham in Sussex_.
Dorset, the grace of courts, the Muse’s pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died.
The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state;
Yet soft in nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.
Blest satirist! who touched the means so true,
As showed Vice had his hate and pity too.
Blest courtier! who could king and country please,
Yet sacred kept his friendship and his ease.
Blest peer! his great forefathers’ every grace
Reflecting, and reflected on his race;
Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And patriots still, or pests, deck the line.
The first distich of this epitaph contains a kind of information which
few would want, that the man for whom the tomb was erected _died_. There
are indeed some qualities worthy of the praise ascribed to the dead, but
none that were likely to exempt him from the lot of man, or incline us
much to wonder that he should die. What is meant by “judge of nature” is
not easy to say. Nature is not the object of human judgment; for it is
in vain to judge where we cannot alter. If by nature is meant what is
commonly called _nature_ by the critics, a just representation of things
really existing, and actions really performed, nature cannot be properly
opposed to _art_; nature being, in this sense, only the best effect of
_art_.