Page:Poetical Works of the Right Hon. Geo. Granville.djvu/77

Tho’ wrote by great Corneille, ſuch lines as theſe,
Such civil nonſenſe, ſure could never pleaſe.
Waller the beſt of all th’ inſpired train
To melt the fair inſtructs the dying ſwain.80

naturally and delicately the Engliſh author treats the article of love than this celebrated Frenchman. I would not however be thought, by any derogatory quotation, to take from the merit of a writer whoſe reputation is ſo univerſally and ſo juſtly eſtabliſhed in all nations; but, as I ſaid before, I rather chuſe, where any failings are to be found, to correct my own countrymen by foreign examples, than to provoke them by inſtances drawn from their own writings, humanum eſt errare. I cannot forbear one quotation more from another celebrated French author. It is an epigram upon a monument for Francis I. King of France, by way of queſtion and answer, which in Engliſh is verbatim thus,


Under this marble who lies buried here?
Francis the Great, a king beyond compare.
Why has ſo great a king ſo ſmall a ſtone?
Of that great king here ’s but the heart alone.
Then of this conqueror here lies but part?
No—here he lies all—for he was all heart.
The author was a Gaſcon, to whom I can properly oppoſe no body ſo well as a Welchman; for which purpoſe I am farther furniſhed from the fore-mentioned collection of Oxford Verſes, with an epigram by Martin Lluellin upon the ſame ſubject, which I remember to have heard often repeated to me when I was a boy. Beſides, from whence can we draw better examples than from the very ſeat and nurſery of the Muſes?

Thus ſlain, thy valiant anceſtor^[1] did lie,
When his one bark a navy did defy;
When now encompaſs’d round he victor ſtood,
And bath’d his pinnace in his conqu’ring blood,

1. ↑  Sir Richard Granville, Vice-admiral of England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, maintained a fight with his ſingle ſhip againſt the whole armada of Spain, conſiſting of fifty-three of their beſt men of war.