To be the Treasurer of his Name:
His Name, that cannot fade, shall be
An everlasting Monument to thee.
7. Ben Johnson’s monument is of white marble, and his bust is executed with great happiness and spirit; ’tis inclosed with a tablature ornamented with a few proper and elegant decorations, consisting of emblematical figures: and has no other inscription but the words O Rare Ben Johnson! This gentleman was the son of a clergyman, and educated at Westminster school, while Mr. Camden was Master; but after his father’s death, his mother marrying a bricklayer, he was forced from school, and being obliged to work for his father, ’tis said, that at the building of Lincoln’s Inn, he was sometimes seen at work with his trowel in one hand, and Horace in the other. However, Mr. Camden having an esteem for him on account of his abilities, recommended him to Sir Walter Raleigh. He attended that brave man’s son in his travels, and upon his return, entered himself at Cambridge; afterwards he wrote a considerable number of plays; became Poet Laureat to King James I. and died on the 16th of August 1637, aged 63. His tomb was erected by the Earl of Essex, who has inscribed his own name on the stone.
8. Spenser’s tomb is of grey marble, and has suffered greatly by time. It was erected in an age when taste was in its infancy in England, and yet has something in it venerably plain, and not absurdly ornamental. The inscription upon it is as follows:
Here lies (expecting the second coming of our Saviour Christ Jesus) the Body of Edmund Spenser, the Prince of Poets in his time, whose divine Spirit needs no other witness than the works he left behind him. He was born in London in 1510, and died 1596.
9. Above Spenser’s monument is that of Samuel Butler, the author of Hudibrass. By the Latin inscription, it appears, that it was erected by John Barber, Esq; Citizen of London, and afterwards Lord Mayor in 1731, that he who was destitute of all things when alive, might not want a monument when dead. Mr. Butler was born at Shernsham in Worcestershire in 1612, and died at London in 1680.
10. A plain and neat monument of white marble in memory of that divine poet, John Milton, who died in 1674. Under a very elegant bust made by Rysbrack is this inscription:
In the year of our Lord Christ 1737, this bust of the author of Paradise Lost was placed here by William Benson, Esq; one of the two auditors of the imprest to his Majesty, &c.
11. A monument erected to the memory of Thomas Shadwell, is adorned with his bust crowned with a chaplet of bays, an urn, and other decorations. It was erected to his honour by his son Dr. Thomas Shadwell, and the Latin inscription informs us, that he was descended from an ancient family in Staffordshire; was Poet Laureat and Historiographer in the reign of King William, and died November 20, 1692, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. This poet was the author of several plays; but falling under the lash of Mr. Dryden, was satirized by him under the character of Ogg, in the second part of his Absalom and Achitophel.