“The Frenchman first in literary fame;
Mention him, if you please. Voltaire? The same,
With spirit, genius, eloquence supplied,
Lived long, wrote much, laughed heartily—and died.”
That very old poet, Stephen Hawes, for discovering in whom “one fine line,” Warton was called “the indulgent historian of our poetry,” tells his own life-story quite to an end, including the particulars of his funeral and epitaph. A finer critic than Warton, or than Warton’s critic, bids those who smile at the design dismiss their levity before the poet’s utterance:—
“O! mortal folke, you may beholde and see
Howe I lye here, sometime a mighty knight.
The end of joye and prosperitie
Is death at last thorough his course and might.
After the day there cometh the dark night,