Now sing, ye joyful angels, and admire Your brother's voice that comes to mend your quire : Sing you, while endless tears our eyes bestow; For, like Amyntas, none is left below * * [This poem did not appear till after Dryden's death, in the Fifth Miscellany, 1704. Nothing is known about it or about the poem which follows, and which, with the Epitaph on young Mr. Rogers, appeared at the same time.-ED.] ON THE DEATH OF A VERY YOUNG GENTLEMAN. HE, who could view the book of destiny, 10 Such wit, such modesty, such strength of mind, 5 15 Yet, durst I guess, heaven kept it for himself; 20 * [ = “rock.”—ED.] Thus then he disappeared, was rarified, As such we loved, admired, almost adored, Thus was the crime not his, but ours alone; Learn then, ye mournful parents, and divide 25 30 35 40 45 The flame's dispersed, but does not all expire; 50 55 VOL. XI. K UPON YOUNG MR. ROGERS, OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. The family of Rogers seems to have been of considerable antiquity in Gloucestershire. They possessed the estate of Dowdeswell during the greater part of the 16th and 17th centuries. Many of their monuments are in the church of Dowdeswell, of which they were patrons.-See ATKYNS's Gloucestershire. subject of this epitaph was probably of this family. Or gentle blood, his parents' only treasure, The Their lasting sorrow, and their vanished pleasure, Adorned with features, virtues, wit, and grace, A large provision for so short a race: More moderate gifts might have prolonged his 5 date, Too early fitted for a better state: But, knowing heaven his home, to shun delay, ON A NEPHEW. [This Epitaph, first printed in PRIOR's Life of Malone, from the latter's Ms., and not included by any editor of Dryden before Christie, is on the son of Rose Dryden, the poet's sister, who married the Rev. Dr. Laughton of Catworth, Huntingdonshire, in the church of which village it is inscribed. I have hitherto been unable to verify or complete the inscription personally, but I hope in the Appendix of this edition to give an account of the present state of all Dryden's work of this kind.-ED.] STAY, stranger, stay, and drop one tear. His father's fifth, her only son. ON THE DEATH OF MR. PURCELL. IN MUSIC. HENRY PURCELL, as a musician, it said by Burney to have been as much the pride of an Englishman as Shakespeare in the drama, Milton in epic poetry, or Locke and Newton in their several departments of philosophy. He was born in 1658, and died in 1695, at the premature age of 37 years. Dryden, to whose productions he had frequently added the charms of music, devoted a tribute to his memory in the following verses, which, with others by inferior bards, were prefixed to a collection of Purcell's music, published two years after his death, under the title of " Orpheus Britannicus." The Ode was set to music by Dr. Blow, and performed at the concert in York Buildings. Dr. Burney says that the music is composed in fugue and imitation; but appears laboured, and is wholly without invention or pathos. The "Orpheus Britannicus" being inscribed by the widow of Purcell to the Hon. Lady Howard, both Sir John Hawkins and Dr. Burney have been led into the mistake of supposing that the person so named was no other than Lady Elizabeth Dryden, our author's wife. Mr. Malone has detected this error; and indeed the high compliments paid by the dedicator to Mr. Purcell's patroness, as an exquisite musician, a person of extensive influence, and one whose munificence had covered the remains of Purcell with "a fair monument," are irreconcilable with the character, situation, and pecuniary circumstances of Lady Elizabeth Dryden. The Lady Howard of the Dedication must, unquestionably, have been the wife of the Honourable Sir Robert Howard; whence it follows that the "honourable gentleman, who had the dearest, and most deserved relation to her, and whose excellent compositions were the subject of Purcell's last and best performances |