Chapter IX: On General Henry Withers

_In Westminster Abbey_, 1723.

Here, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind, Thy country's
friend, but more of human kind. O! born to arms! O! worth in
youth approv'd! O! soft humanity in age belov'd! For thee the
hardy vet'ran drops a tear, And the gay courtier feels the sigh
sincere.

Withers, adieu! yet not with thee remove Thy martial spirit, or
thy social love! Amidst corruption, luxury and rage, Still leave
some ancient virtues to our age: Nor let us say (those English
glories gone) The last true Briton lies beneath this stone.

The epitaph on Withers affords another instance of commonplaces, though somewhat diversified, by mingled qualities, and the peculiarity of a profession.

The second couplet is abrupt, general, and unpleasing; exclamation seldom succeeds in our language; and, I think, it may be observed, that the particle O! used at the beginning of a sentence, always offends.

The third couplet is more happy; the value expressed for him, by different sorts of men, raises him to esteem; there is yet something of the common cant of superficial satirists, who suppose that the insincerity of a courtier destroys all his sensations, and that he is equally a dissembler to the living and the dead[156].

At the third couplet I should wish the epitaph to close, but that I should be unwilling to lose the two next lines, which yet are dearly bought if they cannot be retained without the four that follow them.