Samuel Richardson, poetical epitaph for Andrew Millar junior, annotated by Andrew Millar senior

Samuel Richardson, poetical epitaph for Andrew Millar junior, annotated by Andrew Millar senior Richardson, Samuel University of Edinburgh Arts and Humanities Research Council Dr. Adam Budd The University of Edinburgh and the Arts & Humanities Research Council CC BY-SA

Authors and friends BL, Yale; Osborn MSS file #16819

Richardson’s offered poetic epitaph for Andrew Millar junior distils the themes of his consolation letter. Millar meticulously corrected the spelling of his son’s name, and added his exact age and date of death, but eventually chose a different epitaph.

DOCX to TEI Andrew Miller,

Millar wrote over Richardson’s “e”, correcting the spelling with an “a”. Although people often used variant spellings for their names, Millar always used the Scottish spelling, so it is surprising to find Richardson (a master-printer who had printed many books for Millar) using a different spelling here. Millar also crossed out each “&c” and inserted full details; {} marks his additions.

died &c: {^at Scarboro’^ 30 July 1750}

According to the burial records of St Luke’s Church, Chelsea, Andrew Millar Jr (1745–50) was buried on 28 August. The following April, Millar decided to purchase “a piece of ground in the New Burying Ground, for erecting a tomb and vault for his family”; he was allowed to do so upon donating “an engine” to the Chelsea Workhouse and Charity School (probably a Newsham hand-pump fire engine). The cemetery, consecrated in 1733, is now a public park called Dovehouse Green; Millar’s obelisk still stands near the centre. See T. Faulkner, An Historical and Topographical Description of Chelsea (Chelsea: for T. Faulkner, 1829) vol. 2, 114; Daniel Lysons, The Environs of London (London: A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1792) vol. 2, 112. Millar chose a different epitaph for the obelisk.

Aged &c: {5 years 6 mts 28 days} And tho’ Altho’ thus early from all Ills remov’d,

This line is written in a smaller script, apparently an insertion.

In Death lamented, as in Life belov’d! Altho’ And tho’ thus Early*, *from all Ills remov’d, Here fix, firm Marble, sacred to thy Trust, And guard These dear Remains,

Richardson was inspired by lines written by his friend, the playwright Colley Cibber, for his play Caesar in Egypt (1724): “Just Gods!/Had I but life to lose, the tumult here/Might end my woes; but lesser cares must wait:/To guard these dear remains, I wave [sic] my fate.” See The Dramatic Works of Colley Cibber (New York: Garland, 1966) vol. 5, 67.

of Infant Dust!

Richardson often referred to the religious writer Isaac Watts in his novels and letters. Here he echoes Watts’s solemn “Epitaph on King William III” (1702): “Preserve, O venerable PILE,/Inviolate thy sacred Trust;/To thy cold Arms the BRITISH Isle,/Weeping, commits her richest Dust.” See Horae Lyricae: Poems, Chiefly of the Lyric Kind, 8th edition (London: J. Brackstone, 1743) 258.

He that who gives Worldly Joys, has Right to take! That Thought, forbids the Parents’ Hearts to break: What tho’ Their Hopes, cold Tomb! are lost in Thee? Yet such, the End of Earthly Hopes must be. All that sweet Innocence on Earth can Boast, Is shipwreck’d off, on Sin’s destructive Coast: Mourn not a Change Religion holds most dear! An Angel now! when but a Mortal Here.