_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, dy'd,--
The scourge of pride, though sanctify'd 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 touch'd the mean so true,
As show'd, 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 forefather's every grace
Reflecting, and reflected on his race;
Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And patriots still, or poets, 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 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 vain to judge where we cannot alter. If by nature is meant
what is commonly called _nature_ by the criticks, 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_.