Samuel Butler's Epitaph
by Samuel Wesley

This is the inscription by Mr. Samuel Wesley on the tombstone erected to the memory of the author of 'Hudibras' in Westminster abbey (1720):

"While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
No generous patron would a dinner give;
See him, when starved to death, and turned to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust.
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,
He asked for bread, and he received a stone."