In action faithful, yet in honour clear!
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend;
Ennobled by Himself, by all approved,
Praised, wept, and honored by the Muse he loved.
The one on Gay is interesting as a tribute of friendship, and as a faithful portrait of that pleasing and amiable poet, the simplicity of whose character is admirably delineated in the first couplet:—
Of manners gentle, and affections mild,
In wit a man, simplicity a child.
Altogether it is a beautiful and appropriate[pg 215] composition, and we cannot but regret that the monument on which it appears should be disfigured by the doggerel, said to have been written by Gay himself, and inscribed on the ledge just above Pope's epitaph;
Life is a jest, and all things show it;