Scan 510
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
22 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 432. See the scan on archive.org.
1meditation, he, almost extempore, produced the following verses:—
3"Phillips, whose touch harmonious could remove
4The pangs of guilty power or hapless love;
5Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more;
6Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;
7Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrine,
8Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!"
10Boswell 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:—
12"Exalted soul, thy various sounds could please
13The love-sick virgin, and the gouty ease;
14Could jarring crowds, like old Amphion, move
15To beauteous order and harmonious love;
16Rest here in peace, till angels bid thee rise,
17And meet thy Saviour's concert in the skies."
19Boswell'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.
21Boswell remarks, "This epitaph is so exquisitely beautiful that I remember even Lord Kames, strangely prejudiced as he was against Dr. Johnson, was compelled to allow it very high
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