If an hero or a poet happens to die with
us, the whole band of elegiac poets raise the dismal chorus, adorn his
herse with all the paltry escutcheons of flattery, rise into bombast,
paint him at the head of his thundering legions, or reining Pegasus in
his most rapid career; they are sure to strew cypress enough upon the
bier, dress up all the muses in mourning, and look themselves every whit
as dismal and sorrowful as an undertaker's shop.' He returned to the
subject in a 'Chinese Letter' of March 4, 1761, in the 'Public Ledger'
(afterwards Letter ciii of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 162-5),
which contains the lines 'On the Death of the Right Honourable ***; and
again, in 'The Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, i. 174, 'a propos' of the
'Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog', he makes Dr. Primrose say, 'I have
wept so much at all sorts of elegies of late, that without an enlivening
glass I am sure this will overcome me.'
The model for 'An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize' is to be found in the old
French popular song of Monsieur de la Palisse or Palice, about fifty
verses of which are printed in Larousse's 'Grand Dictionnaire Universel
du XIXme Siecle', x.
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