[6] The epitaph at first intended by Pope for this monument was,
"This Sheffield raised; the sacred dust below
Was Dryden once:—the rest, who does not know?"
Atterbury had thus written to him on this subject, in 1720: "What I said to you in mine, about the monument, was intended only to quicken, not to alarm you. It is not worth your while to know what I meant by it; but when I see you, you shall. I hope you may be at the Deanery towards the end of October, by which time I think of settling there for the winter. What do you think of some such short inscription as this in Latin, which may, in a few words, say all that is to be said of Dryden, and yet nothing more than he deserves?
JOHANNI DRYDENO, CUI POESIS ANGICANA VIM SUAM AC VENERES DEBET; ET SI QUA IN POSTERUM AUGEBITUR LAUDE, EST ADHUC DEBITURA. HONORIS ERGO P. ETC.
"To show you that I am as much in earnest in the affair as you yourself, something I will send you of this kind in English. If your design holds, of fixing Dryden's name only below, and his busto above, may not lines like these be graved just under the name?
This Sheffield raised, to Dryden's ashes just;
Here fixed his name, and there his laureled bust:
What else the Muse in marble might express,
Is known already: praise would make him less.
"Or thus:
More needs not; when acknowledged merits reign,
Praise is impertinent, and censure vain."
The thought, as Mr. Malone observes, is nearly the same as in the following lines in "Luctus Britannici," by William Marston, of Trinity College, Cambridge:
"In JOANNEM DRYDEN, poelarum facile principem.