_Intended for Mr._ ROWE, _in Westminster Abbey_.
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 women 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 was 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.