Epitaph On Frederick, Duke Of Schomberg[1]



 Hic infra situm est corpus

FREDERICI DUCIS DE SCHOMBERG.

ad BUDINDAM occisi, A.D. 1690.

DECANUS et CAPITULUM maximopere etiam

atque etiam petierunt,

UT HAEREDES DUCIS monumentum

In memoriam PARENTIS erigendum curarent:

Sed postquam per epistolas, per amicos,

diu ac saepè orando nil profecêre;

Hunc demum lapidem ipsi statuerunt,

Saltem[2] ut scias, hospes,

Ubinam terrarum SCONBERGENSIS cineres

delitescunt

"Plus potuit fama virtutis apud alienos,

Quam sanguinis proximitas apud suos."

A.D. 1731.

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. Swift is remembered for works such as "A Tale of a Tub" (1704), "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity" (1712), and "Gulliver's Travels" (1726). Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, Drapier's Letters as MB Drapier—and works were sometimes attributed to Anonymous.

Jonathan Swift

On The Vowels

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

To The Dean Of St. Patrick's In Answer To His Left-Handed Letter

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

On The Same (On The Upright Judge, Who Condemned The Drapier's Printer)

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

On A Curate's Complaint Of Hard Duty

Jonathan Swift, Simple Poetry

Latin

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Epitaph I. On Charles Earl Of Dorset, In The Church Of Withyam, In Sussex.

'His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere!'

VIRG.

Dorset, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride,
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died.
The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state:
Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.
Bless'd 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 keep his friendships, and his ease.
Blest peer! his great forefathers' every grace
Reflecting, and reflected in his race;
Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And patriots still, or poets, deck the line.

Alexander Pope

Epitaph Inscribed On A Marble Tablet, In Berkeley Church, Gloucestershire

H. S. E.




 CAROLUS Comes de BERKELEY, Vicecomes DURSLEY,

Baro BERKELEY, de Berkeley Cast., MOWBRAY, SEGRAVE,

Et BRUCE, è nobilissimo Ordine Balnei Eques,

Vir ad genus quod spectat et proavos usquequaque nobilis

Et longo si quis alius procerum stemmate editus;

Muniis etiam tarn illustri stirpi dignis insignitus.

Siquidem a GULIELMO III° ad ordines foederati Belgii

Ablegatus et Plenipotentiarius Extraordinarius

Rebus, non Britanniae tantùm, sed totius fere Europae

(Tunc temporis praesertim arduis) per annos V. incubuit,

Quam felici diligentia, fide quam intemerata,

Ex illo discas, Lector, quod, superstite patre,

In magnatum ordinem adscisci meruerit.

Fuit à sanctioribus consiliis et Regi GULIEL. et ANNAE Reginae

E proregibus Hiberni...

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Epitaph.

Here lies a man cut off by fate
Too soon for all good men;
For sextons he died late too late
For those who wield the pen.

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Epitaph On A Tuft-Hunter.

Lament, lament, Sir Isaac Heard,
    Put mourning round thy page, Debrett,
For here lies one who ne'er preferred
    A Viscount to a Marquis yet.

Beside him place the God of Wit,
    Before him Beauty's rosiest girls,
Apollo for a star he'd quit,
    And Love's own sister for an Earl's.

Did niggard fate no peers afford,
    He took of course to peers' relations;
And rather than not sport a Lord
    Put up with even the last creations;

Even Irish names could he but tag 'em
    With "Lord" and "Duke," were sweet to call;
And at a pinch Lord Ballyraggum
    Was better than no Lord at all.

Heaven grant him now some noble nook,
    For rest his soul! he'd rather be
Genteelly damned beside a Duke,
    Than saved in vulga...

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Epitaph XIV. On Edmund Duke Of Buckingham, Who Died In The Nineteenth Year Of His Age, 1735.

If modest youth, with cool reflection crown'd,
And every opening virtue blooming round,
Could save a parent's justest pride from fate,
Or add one patriot to a sinking state;
This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear,
Or sadly told how many hopes lie here!
The living virtue now had shone approved,
The senate heard him, and his country loved.
Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame
Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham:
In whom a race, for courage famed and art,
Ends in the milder merit of the heart;
And chiefs or sages long to Britain given,
Pays the last tribute of a saint to Heaven.

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Epitaph On The Same (On The Death Of Demar, The Usurer)

Beneath this verdant hillock lies
Demar, the wealthy and the wise,
His heirs,[1] that he might safely rest,
Have put his carcass in a chest;
The very chest in which, they say,
His other self, his money, lay.
And, if his heirs continue kind
To that dear self he left behind,
I dare believe, that four in five
Will think his better self alive.

Jonathan Swift