IMPROVISO

ON A YOUNG HEIR'S COMING OF AGE.

Long expected one-and-twenty,

Ling'ring year, at length is flown; Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty, Great

are now your own.

Loosen'd from the minor's tether,

Free to mortgage or to sell; Wild as wind, and light as feather,

Bid the sons of thrift farewell.

Call the Betseys, Kates, and Jennies,

All the names that banish care; Lavish of your grandsire's guineas,

Show the spirit of an heir.

All that prey on vice or folly

Joy to see their quarry fly: There the gamester light and jolly,

There the lender grave and sly.

Wealth, my lad, was made to wander,

Let it wander as it will;
Call the jockey, call the pander,

Bid them come, and take their fill.

When the bonny blade carouses,

Pockets full, and spirits highWhat are acres? what are houses ?

Only dirt, or wet or dry.

Should the guardian friend, or mother

Tell the woes of wilful waste;
Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother,

You can hang or drown at last.

EPITAPHS.

AT LICHFIELD.

H. S. E.

MICHAEL JOHNSON, Vir impavidus, constans, animosus, periculorum immemor, laborum patientissimus; fiducia christiana fortis, fervidusque; paterfamilias apprime strenuus; bibliopola admodum peritus; mente et libris et negotiis exculta; animo ita firmo, ut, rebus adversis diu conflictatus, nec sibi nec suis defuerit; lingua sic temperata, ut ei nihil quod aures vel pias vel castas læsisset, aut dolor vel voluptas unquam expresserit.

Natus Cubleiæ, in agro Derbiensi, anno MDCLVI; obijt MDCCXXXI.

Apposita est SARA, conjux, Antiqua FORDORUM gente oriunda ; quam domi sedulam, foris paucis notam; nulli molestam, mentis acumine et judicii subtilitate præcellentem; aliis multum, sibi parum indulgentem: æternitati semper attentam, omne fere virtutis nomen commendavit. Nata Nortoniæ Regis, in agro

Varvicensi, MDCLXIX; obijt MDCCLIX.

Cum NATHANAELE, illorum filio, qui natus MDCCXII. cum vires et animi et corporis multa pollicerentur, anno MDCCXXXVII. vitam brevem pia morte finivit.

anno

IN BROMLEY CHURCH.

Hic conduntur reliquiæ

ELIZABETHÆ
Antiqua JARVISIORUM gente
Peatlingæ, apud Leicestrenses, ortæ ;

Formosæ, cultæ, ingeniosæ, piæ;
Uxoris, primis nuptiis, Henrici Porter,

secundis, SAMUELIS JOHNSON,
Qui multum amatam, diuque defletam,

Hoc lapide contexit.
Obijt Londini, mense Mart.

A. D. MDCCLIII,

IN WATFORD CHURCH.

In the vault below are deposited the remains of
Jane Bell, wife of JOHN BELL, esq.

who, in the fifty-third year of her age,

surrounded with many worldly blessings, heard, with fortitude and composure truly great, the horrible malady, which had, for some time, begun to

afflict her, pronounced incurable ;

and for more than three years, endured with patience, and concealed with decency,

the daily tortures of gradual death ; continued to divide the hours not allotted to devotion, between the cares of her family, and the converse of

her friends ;
rewarded the attendance of duty,

and acknowledged the offices of affection; and, while she endeavoured to alleviate by cheerfulness

her husband's sufferings and sorrows, increased them by her gratitude for his care,

and her solicitude for his quiet.

To the testimony of these virtues,
more highly honoured, as more familiarly known,

this monument is erected by

John BELL.

She died in October, 1771,

IN STRETHAM CHURCH.

JUXTA sepulta est HESTERA MARIA,
Thomæ Cotton de Combermere, baronetti Cestriensis,

filia,
Johannis Salusbury, armigeri Flintiensis, uxor,

Forma felix, felix ingenio;
Omnibus jucunda, suorum amantissima.

Linguis artibusque ita exculta,

Ut loquenti nunquam deessent
Sermonis nitor, sententiarum flosculi,
Sapientiæ gravitas, leporum gratia:

Modum servandi adeo perita,
Ut domestica inter negotia literis oblectaretur;
Literarum inter delicias, rem familiarem sedulo curaret.

Multis illi multos annos precantibus
diri carcinomatis veneno contabuit,
nexibusque vitæ paulatim resolutis,

e terris, meliora sperans, emigravit.
Nata 1707. Nupta 1739. Obijt 1779.

IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

OLIVARII GOLDSMITH,

Poetæ, Physici, Historici,
Qui nullum fere scribendi genus

Non tetigit,
Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit:
Sive risus essent movendi,

Sive lacrimæ,
Affectuum potens, at lenis, dominator :
Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis,
Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus:
Hoc monumento memoriam coluit

Sodalium amor,
Amicorum fides,
Lectorum veneratio.

Elfiniæ, in Hibernia, natus MDCCXXIX.

Eblanæ literis institutus :
Londini obijt MDCCLXXIV°.

IN STRETHAM CHURCH.

Hic conditur quod reliquum est

HENRICI THRALE,
Qui res seu civiles, seu domesticas, ita egit,

Ut vitam illi longiorem multi optarent;

Ita sacras,

Ut quam brevem esset habiturus præscire videretur ;

Simplex, apertus, sibique semper similis,
Nihil ostentavit aut arte fictum, aut cura

elaboratum.
In senatu, regi patriæque

Fideliter studuit,
Vulgi obstrepentis contemptor animosus;

Domi, inter mille mercaturæ negotia,
Literarum elegantiam minime neglexit.
Amicis, quocunque modo laborantibus,

• This is the epitaph, that drew from Gibbon, sir J. Reynolds, Sheridan, Joseph Warton, &c. the celebrated Round Robin, composed by Burke, intreating Johnson to write an English epitaph on an English author. His reply was, in the genuine spirit of an old scholar,“ he would never consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster abbey with an English inscription.” One of his arguments, in favour of a common learned language, was ludicrously cogent: “Consider, sir, how you should feel, were you to find, at Rotterdam, an epitaph, upon Erasmus, in Dutch!” Boswell, iii. He would, however, undoubtedly have written a better epitaph in English, than in Latin. His compositions in that language are not of first rate excellence, either in prose or verse.

The epitaph, in Stretham church, on Mr. Thrale, abouads with inaccuracies; and those who are fond of detecting little blunders in great men, may be amply gratified in the perusal of a review of Thrale's epitaph in the Classical Journal, xii. 6. His Greek epitaph on Goldsmith, is not remarkable in itself, but we will subjoin it, in this place, as a literary curiosity.

Τον τάφον είσoράας τον ΟΛΙΒΑ POIO, κονίην

"Αφρoσι μή σεμνήν, Ξεϊνε, πόδεσσι πάτει.
Οίσι μέμηλε φύσις, μέτρων χάρις, έργα παλαιών,
Κλαίετε ποιητήν, ιστορίκον, φυσικόν.

Ep.