_On the honourable_ SIMON HARCOURT, _only son of the lord chancellor_
HARCOURT, _at the church of Stanton-Harcourt, in Oxfordshire_, 1720.
To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near,
Here lies the friend most lov'd, the son most dear:
Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.
How vain is reason, eloquence how weak!
If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak.
Oh! let thy once-lov'd friend inscribe thy stone,
And with a father's sorrows mix his own!
This epitaph is principally remarkable for the artful introduction of
the name, which is inserted with a peculiar felicity, to which chance
must concur with genius, which no man can hope to attain twice, and
which cannot be copied but with servile imitation.
I cannot but wish that, of this inscription, the two last lines had been
omitted, as they take away from the energy what they do not add to the
sense.