_On Mr._ GAY, _in Westminster Abbey_, 1732.
Of manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit, a muse; simplicity, a child:
With native humour tempering virtuous rage,
Formed to delight at once and lash the age:
Above temptation, in a low estate,
And uncorrupted, ev’n among the Great:
A safe companion and an easy friend,
Unbiased through life, lamented in thy end,
These are thy honours! not that here thy bust
Is mixed with heroes, or with kings thy dust;
But that the worthy and the Good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms—Here lies GAY.
As Gay was the favourite of our author this epitaph was probably written
with an uncommon degree of attention, yet it is not more successfully
executed than the rest, for it will not always happen that the success of
a poet is proportionate to his labour. The same observation may be
extended to all works of imagination, which are often influenced by
causes wholly out of the performer’s power, by hints of which he
perceives not the origin, by sudden elevations of mind which he cannot
produce in himself, and which sometimes rise when he expects them least.
The two parts of the first line are only echoes of each other; _gentle
manners_ and _mild affections_, if they mean anything, must mean the
same.
That Gay was a _man in wit_ is a very frigid commendation; to have the
wit of a man is not much for a poet. The _wit of man_ and the
_simplicity of a child_ make a poor and vulgar contrast, and raise no
ideas of excellence, either intellectual or moral.
In the next couplet _rage_ is less properly introduced after the mention
of _mildness_ and _gentleness_, which are made the constituents of his
character; for a man so _mild_ and _gentle_ to _temper_ his _rage_ was
not difficult. The next line is inharmonious in its sound, and mean in
its conception; the opposition is obvious, and the word _lash_ used
absolutely, and without any modification, is gross and improper. To be
_above temptation_ in poverty and _free from corruption among the Great_
is indeed such a peculiarity as deserved notice. But to be a _safe
companion_ is a praise merely negative, arising not from possession of
virtue but the absence of vice, and that one of the most odious.
As little can be added to his character by asserting that he was
_lamented in his end_. Every man that dies is, at least by the writer of
his epitaph, supposed to be lamented, and therefore this general
lamentation does no honour to Gay.
The first eight lines have no grammar; the adjectives are without any
substantive, and the epithets without a subject. The thought in the last
line, that Gay is buried in the bosoms of the _worthy_ and _good_, who
are distinguished only to lengthen the line, is so dark that few
understand it, and so harsh, when it is explained, that still fewer
approve.