Scan 391
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
24 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1DR. JOHNSON'S EPITAPH ON PHILLIPS, THE WELSH VIOLINIST.
3Johnson and Garrick were sitting together, when among other things Garrick repeated an epitaph upon Phillips, by a Dr. Wilkes, which was very commonplace, and Johnson said to Garrick, "I think, Davy, I can make a better." Then, stirring about his tea for a little while in a state of meditation, he, almost extempore, produced the following verses:—
5"Phillips, whose touch harmonious could remove
6The pangs of guilty power or hapless love;
7Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more;
8Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;
9Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrine,
10Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!"
12Boswell says, "Mr. Garrick appears not to have recited the verses correctly, the original being as follows. One of the various readings is remarkable, and it is the germ of Johnson's concluding line:—
14"Exalted soul, thy various sounds could please
15The love-sick virgin, and the gouty ease;
16Could jarring crowds, like old Amphion, move
17To beauteous order and harmonious love;
18Rest here in peace, till angels bid thee rise,
19And meet thy Saviour's concert in the skies."
21Boswell's "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides" contains the author's letter to Garrick asking him to send the "bad verses which led Johnson to make his fine verses on Phillips the musician." Garrick replied, enclosing the desired epitaph.
23Boswell remarks, "This epitaph is so exquisitely beautiful that I remember even Lord Kames, strangely prejudiced as
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