_On Sir_ GODFREY KNELLER, _in Westminster Abbey_, 1723.
Kneller, by Heaven, and not a master, taught,
Whose art was Nature, and whose pictures thought;
Now for two ages, having snatched from fate
Whate’er was beauteous, or whate’er was great,
Lies crowned with Princes, honours, Poets, lays,
Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise.
Living, great Nature feared he might outvie
Her works; and dying, fears herself may die.
Of this epitaph the first couplet is good, the second not bad, the third
is deformed with a broken metaphor, the word crowned not being applicable
to the honours or the lays, and the fourth is not only borrowed from the
epitaph on Raphael, but of a very harsh construction.