Note 556 — ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY.
Reading edition
The anonymous translator of Ariadne to Theseus:
Poor Ariadne! thou must perish here, Breathe out thy soul in strange and hated air, Nor see thy pitying mother shed one tear; Want a kind hand, which thy fixed eyes may close, And thy stiff limbs may decently compose.
So Gay in his Dione, Act ii. Sc. 1:
What pious care my ghastful lid shall close? What decent hand my frozen limbs compose.—Wakefield.
De Quincey assumes that the term "decent limbs" refers to the lady's shape, and he remarks that the language "does not imply much enthusiasm of praise." Pope had perhaps the same idea in his mind as the translator he imitated, and "thy decent limbs were composed" may be put inaccurately for "thy limbs were composed decently."