ON

THE MONUMENT

OF A

FAIR MAIDEN LADY,

WHO DIED AT BATH,

AND IS THERE INTERRED.

This lady lies buried in the Abbey-Church at Bath. The lines are accompanied by the following inscription upon a monument of white marble: Here lies the body of Mary, third daughter of Richard Frampton of Moreton, in Dorsetshire, Esq. and of Jane his wife, sole daughter of Sir Francis Cothington of Fonthill, in Wilts, who was born January 1, 1676, and died, after seven weeks illness, on the 6th of September, 1698.

"This monument was erected by Catharine Frampton, her second sister and executrix, in testimony of her grief, affection, and gratitude."

BELOW this marble monument is laid
All that heaven wants of this celestial maid.
Preserve, O sacred tomb, thy trust consign'd;
The mould was made on purpose for the mind:
And she would lose, if, at the latter day,
One atom could be mix'd of other clay;
Such were the features of her heavenly face,

Her limbs were form'd with such harmonious grace:

So faultless was the frame, as if the whole
Had been an emanation of the soul;

Which her own inward symmetry reveal'd,
And like a picture shone, in glass anneal'd;
Or like the sun eclipsed, with shaded light;
Too piercing, else, to be sustain'd by sight.
Each thought was visible that roll'd within;
As through a crystal case the figured hours are seen.
And heaven did this transparent veil provide,
Because she had no guilty thought to hide.
All white a virgin-saint, she sought the skies,
For marriage, though it sullies not, it dyes.
High though her wit, yet humble was her mind;
As if she could not, or she would not, find

How much her worth transcended all her kind. S

Yet she had learn'd so much of heaven below,
That when arrived, she scarce had more to know;
But only to refresh the former hint,
And read her Maker in a fairer print.
So pious, as she had no time to spare

For human thoughts, but was confined to prayer;
Yet in such charities she pass'd the day,

"Twas wondrous how she found an hour to pray.
A soul so calm, it knew not ebbs or flows,
Which passion could but curl, not discompose.
A female softness, with a manly mind;
A daughter duteous, and a sister kind;
In sickness patient, and in death resign'd.

UNDER

MR MILTON'S PICTURE,

BEFORE HIS PARADISE LOST.

This inscription appeared under the engraving prefixed to Tonson's folio edition of the Paradise Lost, published by subscription, under the patronage of Somers, in 1688. Dryden was one of the subscribers. Atterbury, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, was active in procuring subscribers. See a letter of his to Tonson, MaLONE'S Life of Dryden, p. 203.

Mr Malone regards Dryden's hexastich as an amplification of Selvaggi's distich, addressed to Milton while at Rome:

Græcia Moonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem,
Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem.

THREE poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn.
The first, in loftiness of thought surpass'd;
The next, in majesty; in both, the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she join'd the former two.

8

ODES, SONGS,

AND

LYRICAL PIECES.

VOL. XI.

L