_On Mrs._ CORBET, _who died of a Cancer in her Breast_.
Here rests a woman, good without pretence,
Blest with plain reason, and with sober sense;
No conquest she, but o’er herself, desired;
No arts essayed, but not to be admired.
Passion and pride were to her soul unknown,
Convinced that Virtue only is our own.
So unaffected, so composed a mind,
So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refined,
Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures tried;
The saint sustained it, but the woman died.
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. Domestic virtue, as it is
exerted without great occasions, or conspicuous consequences, in an even
unnoted tenor, 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 scarce one line taken from commonplaces, unless it be
that in which _only Virtue_ is said to be _our own_. I once heard a lady
of great beauty and excellence object to the fourth line that it
contained an unnatural and incredible panegyric. Of this let the ladies
judge.