The moral is so plain to hit,
That, had I been the god of wit,
Then, in a saw-pit and wet weather,
Should Young and Philips drudge together.
EPITAPH ON GENERAL GORGES,[1] AND LADY MEATH[2]
Under this stone lies Dick and Dolly.
Doll dying first, Dick grew melancholy;
For Dick without Doll thought living a folly.
Dick lost in Doll a wife tender and dear:
But Dick lost by Doll twelve hundred a-year;
A loss that Dick thought no mortal could bear.
Dick sigh'd for his Doll, and his mournful arms cross'd;
Thought much of his Doll, and the jointure he lost;
The first vex'd him much, the other vex'd most.
Thus loaded with grief, Dick sigh'd and he cried:
To live without both full three days he tried;
But liked neither loss, and so quietly died.
Dick left a pattern few will copy after:
Then, reader, pray shed some tears of salt water;
For so sad a tale is no subject of laughter.
Meath smiles for the jointure, though gotten so late;
The son laughs, that got the hard-gotten estate;
And Cuffe[3] grins, for getting the Alicant plate.
Here quiet they lie, in hopes to rise one day,
Both solemnly put in this hole on a Sunday,
And here rest----_sic transit gloria mundi_!
[Footnote 1: Of Kilbrue, in the county of Meath.
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