Take holy earth! all that my soul holds dear:Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave:To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care,Her faded form. She bow'd to taste the wave—And died. Does youth, does beauty read the line?Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine;Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move:And if so fair, from vanity as free,As firm in friendship, and as fond in love;Tell them, tho 'tis an awful thing to die,('Twas e'en to thee) yet, the dread path once trod;Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,And bids 'the pure in heart behold their God.'This epitaph has much of what we have demanded; but it is debased in some instances by weakness of expression, in othersby false prettiness. 'She bow'd to taste the wave, and died.' The plain truth was, she drank the Bristol waters which failed to restore her, and her death soon followed; but the expression involves a multitude of petty occupations for the fancy. 'She bow'd': was there any truth in this? 'to taste the wave': the water of a mineral spring which must have been drunk out of a goblet. Strange application of the word 'wave' and 'died': This would have been a just expression if the water had killed her; but, as it is, the tender thought involved in the disappointment of a hope however faint is left unexpressed; and a shock of surprise is given, entertaining perhaps to a light fancy but to a steady mind unsatisfactory, because false. 'Speak! dead Maria, breathe a strain divine'! This sense flows nobly from the heart and the imagination; but perhaps it is not one of those impassioned thoughts which should be fixed in language upon a sepulchral stone. It is in its nature too poignant and transitory. A husband meditating by his wife's grave would throw off such a feeling, and would give voice to it; and it would be in its place in a Monody to her memory; but if I am not mistaken, ought to have been suppressed here, or uttered after a different manner. The implied impersonation of the deceased (according to the tenor of what has before been said) ought to have been more general and shadowy.And if so fair, from vanity as free,As firm in friendship and as fond in love;Tell them—These are two sweet verses, but the word 'fair' is improper; for unquestionably it was not intended that their title to receive this assurance should depend at all upon their personal beauty. Moreover in this couplet and in what follows, the long suspension of the sense excites the expectation of a thought less common than the concluding one; and is an instance of a failure in doing what is most needful and most difficult in an epitaph to do; namely to give to universally received truths a pathos and spirit which shall re-admit them into the soul like revelations of the moment.I have said that this excellence is difficult to attain; and why? Is it because nature is weak? No! Where the soul has been thoroughly stricken (and Heaven knows the course of life must have placed all men, at some time or other, in that condition) there is never a want ofpositivestrength; but because the adversary of Nature (call that adversary Art or by what name you will) iscomparativelystrong. The far-searching influence of the power, which, for want of a better name, we will denominate Taste, is in nothing more evinced than in the changeful character and complexion of that species of composition which we have been reviewing. Upon a call so urgent, it might be expected that the affections, the memory, and the imagination would beconstrainedto speak their genuine language. Yet, if the few specimens which have been given in the course of this enquiry, do not demonstrate the fact, the Reader need only look into any collection of Epitaphs to be convinced, that the faults predominant in the literature of every age will be as strongly reflected in the sepulchral inscriptions as any where; nay perhaps more so, from the anxiety of the Author to do justice to the occasion: and especially if the composition be in verse; for then it comes more avowedly in the shape of a work of art; and of course, is more likely to be coloured by the work of art holden in most esteem at the time. In a bulky volume of Poetry entitled ELEGANT EXTRACTS IN VERSE, which must be known to most of my Readers, as it is circulated everywhere and in fact constitutes at this day the poetical library of our Schools, I find a number of epitaphs in verse, of the last century; and there is scarcely one which is not thoroughly tainted by the artifices which have over-run our writings in metre since the days of Dryden and Pope. Energy, stillness, grandeur, tenderness, those feelings which are the pure emanations of Nature, those thoughts which have the infinitude of truth, and those expressions which are not what the garb is to the body but what the body is to the soul, themselves a constituent part and power or function in the thought—all these are abandoned for their opposites,—as if our countrymen, through successive generations, had lost the sense of solemnity and pensiveness (not to speak of deeper emotions) and resorted to the tombs of their forefathers and contemporaries, only to be tickled and surprised. Would we not recoil from such gratification, in such a place, if the general literature of the country had not co-operated with other causes insidiously to weaken our sensibilities and deprave our judgments? Doubtless, there are shocks of event and circumstance, public and private, by whichfor all minds the truths of Nature will be elicited; but sorrow for that individual or people to whom these special interferences are necessary, to bring them into communion with the inner spirit of things! for such intercourse must be profitless in proportion as it is unfrequently irregular and transient. Words are too awful an instrument for good and evil, to be trifled with; they hold above all other external powers a dominion over thoughts. If words be not (recurring to a metaphor before used) an incarnation of the thought, but only a clothing for it, then surely will they prove an ill gift; such a one as those possessed vestments, read of in the stories of superstitious times, which had power to consume and to alienate from his right mind the victim who put them on. Language, if it do not uphold, and feed, and leave in quiet, like the power of gravitation or the air we breathe, is a counter-spirit, unremittingly and noiselessly at work, to subvert, to lay waste, to vitiate, and to dissolve. From a deep conviction then that the excellence of writing, whether in prose or verse, consists in a conjunction of Reason and Passion, a conjunction which must be of necessity benign; and that it might be deduced from what has been said that the taste, intellectual power and morals of a country are inseparably linked in mutual dependence, I have dwelt thus long upon this argument. And the occasion justifies me; for how could the tyranny of bad taste be brought home to the mind more aptly than by showing in what degree the feelings of nature yield to it when we are rendering to our friends the solemn testimony of our love? more forcibly than by giving proof that thoughts cannot, even upon this impulse, assume an outward life without a transmutation and a fall.Epitaph on Miss Drummond in the Church of Broadsworth, Yorkshire.MASON.Here sleeps what once was beauty, once was grace;Grace, that with tenderness and sense combin'dTo form that harmony of soul and face,Where beauty shines, the mirror of the mind.Such was the maid, that in the morn of youth,In virgin innocence, in Nature's pride,Blest with each art, that owes its charm to truth,Sunk in her Father's fond embrace, and died.He weeps: O venerate the holy tear!Faith lends her aid to ease Affliction's load;The parent mourns his child upon the bier,The Christian yields an angel to his God.The following is a translation from the Latin, communicated to a Lady in her childhood and by her preserved in memory. I regret that I have not seen the original.She is gone—my beloved daughter Eliza is gone,Fair, cheerful, benign, my child is gone.Thee long to be regretted a Father mourns,Regretted—but thanks to the most perfect God! not lost.For a happier age approachesWhen again, my child, I shall beholdAnd live with thee for ever.Matthew Dobson to his dear, engaging, happy ElizaWho in the 18th year of her agePassed peaceably into heaven.The former of these epitaphs is very far from being the worst of its kind, and on that account I have placed the two in contrast. Unquestionably, as the Father in the latter speaks in his own person, the situation is much more pathetic; but, making due allowance for this advantage, who does not here feel a superior truth and sanctity, which is not dependent upon this circumstance but merely the result of the expression and the connection of the thoughts? I am not so fortunate as to have any knowledge of the Author of this affecting composition, but I much fear if he had called in the assistance of English verse the better to convey his thoughts, such sacrifices would, from various influences, have been madeeven by him, that, though he might have excited admiration in thousands, he would have truly moved no one. The latter part of the following by Gray is almost the only instance among the metrical epitaphs in our language of the last century, which I remember, of affecting thoughts rising naturally and keeping themselves pure from vicious diction; and therefore retaining their appropriate power over the mind.Epitaph on Mrs. Clark.Lo! where the silent marble weeps,A friend, a wife, a mother, sleeps;A heart, within whose sacred cellThe peaceful virtues lov'd to dwell.Affection warm, and love sincere,And soft humanity were there.In agony, in death resigned,She felt the wound she left behind.Her infant image, here below,Sits smiling on a father's woe;Whom what awaits, while yet he straysAlong the lonely vale of days?A pang to secret sorrow dear;A sigh, an unavailing tear,Till time shall every grief remove,With life, with meaning, and with love.I have been speaking of faults which are aggravated by temptations thrown in the way of modern Writers when they compose in metre. The first six lines of this epitaph are vague and languid, more so than I think would have been possible had it been written in prose. Yet Gray, who was so happy in the remaining part, especially the last four lines, has grievously failedin proseupon a subject which it might have been expected would have bound him indissolubly to the propriety of Nature and comprehensive reason. I allude to the conclusion of the epitaph upon his mother, where he says, 'she was the careful tender mother of many children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her.' This is a searching thought, but wholly out of place. Had it been said of an idiot, of a palsied child, or of an adult from any cause dependent upon his mother to a degree of helplessness which nothing but maternal tenderness and watchfulness could answer, that he had the misfortune to survive his mother, the thought would have been just. The same might also have been wrung from any man (thinking of himself) when his soul was smitten with compunction or remorse, through the consciousness of a misdeed from which he might have been preserved (as he hopes or believes) by his mother's prudence, by her anxious care if longer continued, or by the reverential fear of offending or disobeying her. But even then (unless accompanied with a detail of extraordinary circumstances), if transferred to her monument, it would have been misplaced, as being too peculiar, and for reasons which have been before alleged, namely, as too transitory and poignant. But in an ordinary case, for a man permanently and conspicuously to record that this was his fixed feeling; what is it but to run counter to the course of nature, which has made it matter of expectation and congratulation that parents should die before their children? What is it, if searched to the bottom, but lurking and sickly selfishness? Does not the regret include awish that the mother should have survived all her offspring, have witnessed that bitter desolation where the order of things is disturbed and inverted? And finally, does it not withdraw the attention of the Reader from the subject to the Author of the Memorial, as one to be commiserated for his strangely unhappy condition, or to be condemned for the morbid constitution of his feelings, or for his deficiency in judgment? A fault of the same kind, though less in degree, is found in the epitaph of Pope upon Harcourt; of whom it is said that 'he never gave his father grief but when he died.' I need not point out how many situations there are in which such an expression of feeling would be natural and becoming; but in a permanent inscription things only should be admitted that have an enduring place in the mind; and a nice selection is required even among these. The Duke of Ormond said of his son Ossory, 'that he preferred his dead son to any living son in Christendom,'—a thought which (to adopt an expression used before) has the infinitude of truth! But though in this there is no momentary illusion, nothing fugitive, it would still have been unbecoming, had it been placed in open view over the son's grave; inasmuch as such expression of it would have had an ostentatious air, and would have implied a disparagement of others. The sublimity of the sentiment consists in its being the secret possession of the Father.Having been engaged so long in the ungracious office of sitting in judgment where I have found so much more to censure than to approve, though, wherever it was in my power, I have placed good by the side of evil, that the Reader might intuitively receive the truths which I wished to communicate, I now turn back with pleasure to Chiabrera; of whose productions in this department the Reader of theFriendmay be enabled to form a judgment who has attentively perused the few specimens only which have been given. 'An epitaph,' says Weever, 'is a superscription (either in verse or prose) or an astrict pithic diagram, writ, carved, or engraven upon the tomb, grave, or sepulchre of the defunct, briefly declaring (and that with a kind of commiseration) the name, the age, the deserts, the dignities, the state,the praises both of body and minde, the good and bad fortunes in the life, and the manner and time of the death of the person therein interred.' This account of an epitaph, whichas far as it goes is just, was no doubt taken by Weever from the monuments of our own country, and it shews that in his conception an epitaph was not to be an abstract character of the deceased but an epitomized biography blended with description by which an impression of the character was to be conveyed. Bring forward the one incidental expression, a kind of commiseration, unite with it a concern on the part of the dead for the well-being of the living made known by exhortation and admonition, and let this commiseration and concern pervade and brood over the whole, so that what was peculiar to the individual shall still be subordinate to a sense of what he had in common with the species, our notion of a perfect epitaph would then be realized; and it pleases me to say that this is the very model upon which those of Chiabrera are for the most part framed. Observe how exquisitely this is exemplified in the one beginning 'Pause, courteous stranger! Balbi supplicates,' given in theFriendsome weeks ago. The subject of the epitaph is introduced intreating, not directly in his own person but through the mouth of the author, that according to the religious belief of his country a prayer for his soul might be preferred to the Redeemer of the world: placed in counterpoize with this right which he has in common with all the dead, his individual earthly accomplishments appear light to his funeral Biographer as they did to the person of whom he speaks when alive, nor could Chiabrera have ventured to touch upon them but under the sanction of this person's acknowledgment. He then goes on to say how various and profound was his learning, and how deep a hold it took upon his affections, but that he weaned himself from these things as vanities, and was devoted in later life exclusively to the divine truths of the Gospel as the only knowledge in which he could find perfect rest. Here we are thrown back upon the introductory supplication and made to feel its especial propriety in this case; his life was long, and every part of it bore appropriate fruits. Urbina his birth-place might be proud of him, and the passenger who was entreated to pray for his soul has a wish breathed for his welfare. This composition is a perfect whole, there is nothing arbitrary or mechanical, but it is an organized body, of which the members are bound together by a common life and are all justly proportioned. If I had not gone so much into detail I should have given furtherinstances of Chiabrera's Epitaphs, but I must content myself with saying that if he had abstained from the introduction of heathen mythology, of which he is lavish—an inexcusable fault for an inhabitant of a Christian country, yet admitting of some palliation in an Italian who treads classic soil and has before his eyes the ruins of the temples which were dedicated to those fictitious beings of objects of worship by the majestic people his ancestors—had omitted also some uncharacteristic particulars, and had not on some occasions forgotten that truth is the soul of passion, he would have left his Readers little to regret. I do not mean to say that higher and nobler thoughts may not be found in sepulchral inscriptions than his contain; but he understood his work, the principles upon which he composed are just. The Reader of theFriendhas had proofs of this: one shall be given of his mixed manner, exemplifying some of the points in which he has erred.O Lelius beauteous flower of gentleness,The fair Anglaia's friend above all friends:O darling of the fascinating LovesBy what dire envy moved did Death uprootThy days e'er yet full blown, and what ill chanceHath robbed Savona of her noblest grace?She weeps for thee and shall for ever weep,And if the fountain of her tears should failShe would implore Sabete to supplyHer need: Sabete, sympathizing stream,Who on his margin saw thee close thine eyesOn the chaste bosom of thy Lady dear,Ah, what do riches, what does youth avail?Dust are our hopes, I weeping did inscribeIn bitterness thy monument, and prayOf every gentle spirit bitterlyTo read the record with as copious tears.This epitaph is not without some tender thoughts, but a comparison of it with the one upon the youthful Pozzobonelli (seeFriend, No....) will more clearly shew that Chiabrera has here neglected to ascertain whether the passions expressed were in kind and degree a dispensation of reason, or at least commodities issued under her licence and authority.The epitaphs of Chiabrera are twenty-nine in number, all of them save two probably little known at this day in their own country and scarcely at all beyond the limits of it; and theReader is generally made acquainted with the moral and intellectual excellence which distinguished them by a brief history of the course of their lives or a selection of events and circumstances, and thus they are individualized; but in the two other instances, namely those of Tasso and Raphael, he enters into no particulars, but contents himself with four lines expressing one sentiment upon the principle laid down in the former part of this discourse, where the subject of an epitaph is a man of prime note.Torquato Tasso rests within this tomb:This figure weeping from her inmost heartIs Poesy: from such impassioned griefLet every one conclude what this man was.The epitaph which Chiabrera composed for himself has also an appropriate brevity and is distinguished for its grandeur, the sentiment being the same as that which the Reader has before seen so happily enlarged upon.As I am brought back to men of first rate distinction and public benefactors, I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing the metrical part of an epitaph which formerly was inscribed in the church of St. Paul's to that Bishop of London who prevailed with William the Conqueror to secure to the inhabitants of the city all the liberties and privileges which they had enjoyed in the time of Edward the Confessor.These marble monuments to thee thy citizens assigne,Rewards (O Father) farre unfit to those deserts of thine:Thee unto them a faithful friend, thy London people found,And to this towne of no small weight, a stay both sure and sound.Their liberties restorde to them, by means of thee have beene,Their publicke weale by means of thee, large gifts have felt and seene:Thy riches, stocke, and beauty brave, one hour hath them supprest,Yet these thy virtues and good deeds with us for ever rest.Thus have I attempted to determine what a sepulchral inscription ought to be, and taken at the same time a survey of what epitaphs are good and bad, and have shewn to what deficiencies in sensibility and to what errors in taste and judgement most commonly are to be ascribed. It was my intention to have given a few specimens from those of the ancients; but I have already I fear taken up too much of the Reader's time. I have not animadverted upon such, alas! far too numerous, as are reprehensible from the want of moral rectitude in thosewho have composed them or given it to be understood that they should he so composed; boastful and haughty panegyrics ludicrously contradicting the solid remembrance of those who knew the deceased; shocking the common sense of mankind by their extravagance, and affronting the very altar with their impious falsehood. Those I leave to general scorn, not however without a general recommendation that they who have offended or may be disposed to offend in this manner, would take into serious thought the heinousness of their transgression.Upon reviewing what has been written I think it better here to add a few favourable specimens such as are ordinarily found in our country church-yards at this day. If those primary sensations upon which I have dwelt so much be not stifled in the heart of the Reader, they will be read with pleasure, otherwise neither these nor more exalted strains can by him be truly interpreted.Aged 87 and 83.Not more with silver hairs than virtue crown'dThe good old pair take up this spot of ground:Tread in their steps and you will surely findTheir Rest above, below their peace of mind.At the Last Day I'm sure I shall appear,To meet with Jesus Christ my Saviour dear:Where I do hope to live with Him in bliss.Oh, what a joy at my last hour was this!Aged 3 Months.What Christ said once He said to all,Come unto Me, ye children small:None shall do you any wrong,For to My Kingdom you belong.Aged 10 Weeks.The Babe was sucking at the breastWhen God did call him to his rest.In an obscure corner of a country church-yard I once espied, half overgrown with hemlock and nettles, a very small stone laid upon the ground, bearing nothing more than the name of the deceased with the date of birth and death, importing that it was an infant which had been born one day and died the following. I know not how far the Reader may be in sympathywith me; but more awful thoughts of rights conferred, of hopes awakened, of remembrances stealing away or vanishing, were imparted to my mind by that inscription there before my eyes than by any other that it has ever been my lot to meet with upon a tomb-stone.The most numerous class of sepulchral inscriptions do indeed record nothing else but the name of the buried person; but that he was born upon one day and died upon another. Addison in theSpectatormaking this observation says, 'that he cannot look upon those registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, but as a kind of satire upon the departed persons who had left no other memorial of them than that they were born and that they died.' In certain moods of mind this is a natural reflection; yet not perhaps the most salutary which the appearance might give birth to. As in these registers the name is mostly associated with others of the same family, this is a prolonged companionship, however shadowy: even a tomb like this is a shrine to which the fancies of a scattered family may return in pilgrimage; the thoughts of the individuals without any communication with each other must oftentimes meet here. Such a frail memorial then is not without its tendency to keep families together. It feeds also local attachment, which is the tap-root of the tree of Patriotism.I know not how I can withdraw more satisfactorily from this long disquisition than by offering to the Reader as a farewell memorial the following Verses, suggested to me by a concise epitaph which I met with some time ago in one of the most retired vales among the mountains of Westmoreland. There is nothing in the detail of the poem which is not either founded upon the epitaph or gathered from enquiries concerning the deceased, made in the neighbourhood.Beneath that pine which rears its dusky headAloft, and covered by a plain blue stoneBriefly inscribed, a gentle Dalesman lies;From whom in early childhood was withdrawnThe precious gift of hearing. He grew upFrom year to year in loneliness of soul;And this deep mountain valley was to himSoundless with all its streams. The bird of dawnDid never rouse this Cottager from sleepWith startling summons; not for his delightThe vernal cuckoo shouted, not for himMurmured the labouring bee. When stormy windsWere working the broad bosom of the LakeInto a thousand thousand sparkling waves,Rocking the trees, or driving cloud on cloudAlong the sharp edge of yon lofty crags,The agitated scene before his eyeWas silent as a picture; evermoreWere all things silent wheresoe'er he moved.Yet by the solace of his own calm thoughtsUpheld, he duteously pursued the roundOf rural labours: the steep mountain sideAscended with his staff and faithful dog;The plough he guided and the scythe he swayed,And the ripe corn before his sickle fellAmong the jocund reapers. For himself,All watchful and industrious as he was,He wrought not; neither field nor flock he owned;No wish for wealth had place within his mind,No husband's love nor father's hope or care;Though born a younger brother, need was noneThat from the floor of his paternal homeHe should depart to plant himself anew;And when mature in manhood he beheldHis parents laid in earth, no loss ensuedOf rights to him, but he remained well pleasedBy the pure bond of independent love,An inmate of a second family,The fellow-labourer and friend of himTo whom the small inheritance had fallen.Nor deem that his mild presence was a weightThat pressed upon his brother's house; for booksWere ready comrades whom he could not tire;Of whose society the blameless manWas never satiate; their familiar voiceEven to old age with unabated charmBeguiled his leisure hours, refreshed his thoughts,Beyond its natural elevation raisedHis introverted spirit, and bestowedUpon his life an outward dignityWhich all acknowledged. The dark winter night,The stormy day had each its own resource;Song of the Muses, sage historic tale,Science severe, or word of Holy WritAnnouncing immortality and joyTo the assembled spirits of the justFrom imperfection and decay secure:Thus soothed at home, thus busy in the field,To no perverse suspicion he gave way;No languour, peevishness, nor vain complaint.And they who were about him did not failIn reverence or in courtesy; they prizedHis gentle manners, and his peaceful smiles;The gleams of his slow-varying countenanceWere met with answering sympathy and love.At length when sixty years and five were toldA slow disease insensibly consumedThe powers of nature, and a few short stepsOf friends and kindred bore him from his home,Yon cottage shaded by the woody cross,To the profounder stillness of the grave.Nor was his funeral denied the graceOf many tears, virtuous and thoughtful grief,Heart-sorrow rendered sweet by gratitude;And now that monumental stone preservesHis name, and unambitiously relatesHow long and by what kindly outward aidsAnd in what pure contentedness of mindThe sad privation was by him endured.And yon tall pine-tree, whose composing soundWas wasted on the good man's living ear,Hath now its own peculiar sanctity,And at the touch of every wandering breezeMurmurs not idly o'er his peaceful grave.
Take holy earth! all that my soul holds dear:Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave:To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care,Her faded form. She bow'd to taste the wave—And died. Does youth, does beauty read the line?Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine;Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move:And if so fair, from vanity as free,As firm in friendship, and as fond in love;Tell them, tho 'tis an awful thing to die,('Twas e'en to thee) yet, the dread path once trod;Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,And bids 'the pure in heart behold their God.'
Take holy earth! all that my soul holds dear:Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave:To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care,Her faded form. She bow'd to taste the wave—And died. Does youth, does beauty read the line?Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine;Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move:And if so fair, from vanity as free,As firm in friendship, and as fond in love;Tell them, tho 'tis an awful thing to die,('Twas e'en to thee) yet, the dread path once trod;Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,And bids 'the pure in heart behold their God.'
This epitaph has much of what we have demanded; but it is debased in some instances by weakness of expression, in othersby false prettiness. 'She bow'd to taste the wave, and died.' The plain truth was, she drank the Bristol waters which failed to restore her, and her death soon followed; but the expression involves a multitude of petty occupations for the fancy. 'She bow'd': was there any truth in this? 'to taste the wave': the water of a mineral spring which must have been drunk out of a goblet. Strange application of the word 'wave' and 'died': This would have been a just expression if the water had killed her; but, as it is, the tender thought involved in the disappointment of a hope however faint is left unexpressed; and a shock of surprise is given, entertaining perhaps to a light fancy but to a steady mind unsatisfactory, because false. 'Speak! dead Maria, breathe a strain divine'! This sense flows nobly from the heart and the imagination; but perhaps it is not one of those impassioned thoughts which should be fixed in language upon a sepulchral stone. It is in its nature too poignant and transitory. A husband meditating by his wife's grave would throw off such a feeling, and would give voice to it; and it would be in its place in a Monody to her memory; but if I am not mistaken, ought to have been suppressed here, or uttered after a different manner. The implied impersonation of the deceased (according to the tenor of what has before been said) ought to have been more general and shadowy.
And if so fair, from vanity as free,As firm in friendship and as fond in love;Tell them—
And if so fair, from vanity as free,As firm in friendship and as fond in love;Tell them—
These are two sweet verses, but the word 'fair' is improper; for unquestionably it was not intended that their title to receive this assurance should depend at all upon their personal beauty. Moreover in this couplet and in what follows, the long suspension of the sense excites the expectation of a thought less common than the concluding one; and is an instance of a failure in doing what is most needful and most difficult in an epitaph to do; namely to give to universally received truths a pathos and spirit which shall re-admit them into the soul like revelations of the moment.
I have said that this excellence is difficult to attain; and why? Is it because nature is weak? No! Where the soul has been thoroughly stricken (and Heaven knows the course of life must have placed all men, at some time or other, in that condition) there is never a want ofpositivestrength; but because the adversary of Nature (call that adversary Art or by what name you will) iscomparativelystrong. The far-searching influence of the power, which, for want of a better name, we will denominate Taste, is in nothing more evinced than in the changeful character and complexion of that species of composition which we have been reviewing. Upon a call so urgent, it might be expected that the affections, the memory, and the imagination would beconstrainedto speak their genuine language. Yet, if the few specimens which have been given in the course of this enquiry, do not demonstrate the fact, the Reader need only look into any collection of Epitaphs to be convinced, that the faults predominant in the literature of every age will be as strongly reflected in the sepulchral inscriptions as any where; nay perhaps more so, from the anxiety of the Author to do justice to the occasion: and especially if the composition be in verse; for then it comes more avowedly in the shape of a work of art; and of course, is more likely to be coloured by the work of art holden in most esteem at the time. In a bulky volume of Poetry entitled ELEGANT EXTRACTS IN VERSE, which must be known to most of my Readers, as it is circulated everywhere and in fact constitutes at this day the poetical library of our Schools, I find a number of epitaphs in verse, of the last century; and there is scarcely one which is not thoroughly tainted by the artifices which have over-run our writings in metre since the days of Dryden and Pope. Energy, stillness, grandeur, tenderness, those feelings which are the pure emanations of Nature, those thoughts which have the infinitude of truth, and those expressions which are not what the garb is to the body but what the body is to the soul, themselves a constituent part and power or function in the thought—all these are abandoned for their opposites,—as if our countrymen, through successive generations, had lost the sense of solemnity and pensiveness (not to speak of deeper emotions) and resorted to the tombs of their forefathers and contemporaries, only to be tickled and surprised. Would we not recoil from such gratification, in such a place, if the general literature of the country had not co-operated with other causes insidiously to weaken our sensibilities and deprave our judgments? Doubtless, there are shocks of event and circumstance, public and private, by whichfor all minds the truths of Nature will be elicited; but sorrow for that individual or people to whom these special interferences are necessary, to bring them into communion with the inner spirit of things! for such intercourse must be profitless in proportion as it is unfrequently irregular and transient. Words are too awful an instrument for good and evil, to be trifled with; they hold above all other external powers a dominion over thoughts. If words be not (recurring to a metaphor before used) an incarnation of the thought, but only a clothing for it, then surely will they prove an ill gift; such a one as those possessed vestments, read of in the stories of superstitious times, which had power to consume and to alienate from his right mind the victim who put them on. Language, if it do not uphold, and feed, and leave in quiet, like the power of gravitation or the air we breathe, is a counter-spirit, unremittingly and noiselessly at work, to subvert, to lay waste, to vitiate, and to dissolve. From a deep conviction then that the excellence of writing, whether in prose or verse, consists in a conjunction of Reason and Passion, a conjunction which must be of necessity benign; and that it might be deduced from what has been said that the taste, intellectual power and morals of a country are inseparably linked in mutual dependence, I have dwelt thus long upon this argument. And the occasion justifies me; for how could the tyranny of bad taste be brought home to the mind more aptly than by showing in what degree the feelings of nature yield to it when we are rendering to our friends the solemn testimony of our love? more forcibly than by giving proof that thoughts cannot, even upon this impulse, assume an outward life without a transmutation and a fall.
Epitaph on Miss Drummond in the Church of Broadsworth, Yorkshire.MASON.
Here sleeps what once was beauty, once was grace;Grace, that with tenderness and sense combin'dTo form that harmony of soul and face,Where beauty shines, the mirror of the mind.Such was the maid, that in the morn of youth,In virgin innocence, in Nature's pride,Blest with each art, that owes its charm to truth,Sunk in her Father's fond embrace, and died.He weeps: O venerate the holy tear!Faith lends her aid to ease Affliction's load;The parent mourns his child upon the bier,The Christian yields an angel to his God.
Here sleeps what once was beauty, once was grace;Grace, that with tenderness and sense combin'dTo form that harmony of soul and face,Where beauty shines, the mirror of the mind.Such was the maid, that in the morn of youth,In virgin innocence, in Nature's pride,Blest with each art, that owes its charm to truth,Sunk in her Father's fond embrace, and died.He weeps: O venerate the holy tear!Faith lends her aid to ease Affliction's load;The parent mourns his child upon the bier,The Christian yields an angel to his God.
The following is a translation from the Latin, communicated to a Lady in her childhood and by her preserved in memory. I regret that I have not seen the original.
She is gone—my beloved daughter Eliza is gone,Fair, cheerful, benign, my child is gone.Thee long to be regretted a Father mourns,Regretted—but thanks to the most perfect God! not lost.For a happier age approachesWhen again, my child, I shall beholdAnd live with thee for ever.Matthew Dobson to his dear, engaging, happy ElizaWho in the 18th year of her agePassed peaceably into heaven.
She is gone—my beloved daughter Eliza is gone,Fair, cheerful, benign, my child is gone.Thee long to be regretted a Father mourns,Regretted—but thanks to the most perfect God! not lost.For a happier age approachesWhen again, my child, I shall beholdAnd live with thee for ever.
Matthew Dobson to his dear, engaging, happy ElizaWho in the 18th year of her agePassed peaceably into heaven.
The former of these epitaphs is very far from being the worst of its kind, and on that account I have placed the two in contrast. Unquestionably, as the Father in the latter speaks in his own person, the situation is much more pathetic; but, making due allowance for this advantage, who does not here feel a superior truth and sanctity, which is not dependent upon this circumstance but merely the result of the expression and the connection of the thoughts? I am not so fortunate as to have any knowledge of the Author of this affecting composition, but I much fear if he had called in the assistance of English verse the better to convey his thoughts, such sacrifices would, from various influences, have been madeeven by him, that, though he might have excited admiration in thousands, he would have truly moved no one. The latter part of the following by Gray is almost the only instance among the metrical epitaphs in our language of the last century, which I remember, of affecting thoughts rising naturally and keeping themselves pure from vicious diction; and therefore retaining their appropriate power over the mind.
Epitaph on Mrs. Clark.Lo! where the silent marble weeps,A friend, a wife, a mother, sleeps;A heart, within whose sacred cellThe peaceful virtues lov'd to dwell.Affection warm, and love sincere,And soft humanity were there.In agony, in death resigned,She felt the wound she left behind.Her infant image, here below,Sits smiling on a father's woe;Whom what awaits, while yet he straysAlong the lonely vale of days?A pang to secret sorrow dear;A sigh, an unavailing tear,Till time shall every grief remove,With life, with meaning, and with love.
Epitaph on Mrs. Clark.Lo! where the silent marble weeps,A friend, a wife, a mother, sleeps;A heart, within whose sacred cellThe peaceful virtues lov'd to dwell.Affection warm, and love sincere,And soft humanity were there.In agony, in death resigned,She felt the wound she left behind.Her infant image, here below,Sits smiling on a father's woe;Whom what awaits, while yet he straysAlong the lonely vale of days?A pang to secret sorrow dear;A sigh, an unavailing tear,Till time shall every grief remove,With life, with meaning, and with love.
I have been speaking of faults which are aggravated by temptations thrown in the way of modern Writers when they compose in metre. The first six lines of this epitaph are vague and languid, more so than I think would have been possible had it been written in prose. Yet Gray, who was so happy in the remaining part, especially the last four lines, has grievously failedin proseupon a subject which it might have been expected would have bound him indissolubly to the propriety of Nature and comprehensive reason. I allude to the conclusion of the epitaph upon his mother, where he says, 'she was the careful tender mother of many children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her.' This is a searching thought, but wholly out of place. Had it been said of an idiot, of a palsied child, or of an adult from any cause dependent upon his mother to a degree of helplessness which nothing but maternal tenderness and watchfulness could answer, that he had the misfortune to survive his mother, the thought would have been just. The same might also have been wrung from any man (thinking of himself) when his soul was smitten with compunction or remorse, through the consciousness of a misdeed from which he might have been preserved (as he hopes or believes) by his mother's prudence, by her anxious care if longer continued, or by the reverential fear of offending or disobeying her. But even then (unless accompanied with a detail of extraordinary circumstances), if transferred to her monument, it would have been misplaced, as being too peculiar, and for reasons which have been before alleged, namely, as too transitory and poignant. But in an ordinary case, for a man permanently and conspicuously to record that this was his fixed feeling; what is it but to run counter to the course of nature, which has made it matter of expectation and congratulation that parents should die before their children? What is it, if searched to the bottom, but lurking and sickly selfishness? Does not the regret include awish that the mother should have survived all her offspring, have witnessed that bitter desolation where the order of things is disturbed and inverted? And finally, does it not withdraw the attention of the Reader from the subject to the Author of the Memorial, as one to be commiserated for his strangely unhappy condition, or to be condemned for the morbid constitution of his feelings, or for his deficiency in judgment? A fault of the same kind, though less in degree, is found in the epitaph of Pope upon Harcourt; of whom it is said that 'he never gave his father grief but when he died.' I need not point out how many situations there are in which such an expression of feeling would be natural and becoming; but in a permanent inscription things only should be admitted that have an enduring place in the mind; and a nice selection is required even among these. The Duke of Ormond said of his son Ossory, 'that he preferred his dead son to any living son in Christendom,'—a thought which (to adopt an expression used before) has the infinitude of truth! But though in this there is no momentary illusion, nothing fugitive, it would still have been unbecoming, had it been placed in open view over the son's grave; inasmuch as such expression of it would have had an ostentatious air, and would have implied a disparagement of others. The sublimity of the sentiment consists in its being the secret possession of the Father.
Having been engaged so long in the ungracious office of sitting in judgment where I have found so much more to censure than to approve, though, wherever it was in my power, I have placed good by the side of evil, that the Reader might intuitively receive the truths which I wished to communicate, I now turn back with pleasure to Chiabrera; of whose productions in this department the Reader of theFriendmay be enabled to form a judgment who has attentively perused the few specimens only which have been given. 'An epitaph,' says Weever, 'is a superscription (either in verse or prose) or an astrict pithic diagram, writ, carved, or engraven upon the tomb, grave, or sepulchre of the defunct, briefly declaring (and that with a kind of commiseration) the name, the age, the deserts, the dignities, the state,the praises both of body and minde, the good and bad fortunes in the life, and the manner and time of the death of the person therein interred.' This account of an epitaph, whichas far as it goes is just, was no doubt taken by Weever from the monuments of our own country, and it shews that in his conception an epitaph was not to be an abstract character of the deceased but an epitomized biography blended with description by which an impression of the character was to be conveyed. Bring forward the one incidental expression, a kind of commiseration, unite with it a concern on the part of the dead for the well-being of the living made known by exhortation and admonition, and let this commiseration and concern pervade and brood over the whole, so that what was peculiar to the individual shall still be subordinate to a sense of what he had in common with the species, our notion of a perfect epitaph would then be realized; and it pleases me to say that this is the very model upon which those of Chiabrera are for the most part framed. Observe how exquisitely this is exemplified in the one beginning 'Pause, courteous stranger! Balbi supplicates,' given in theFriendsome weeks ago. The subject of the epitaph is introduced intreating, not directly in his own person but through the mouth of the author, that according to the religious belief of his country a prayer for his soul might be preferred to the Redeemer of the world: placed in counterpoize with this right which he has in common with all the dead, his individual earthly accomplishments appear light to his funeral Biographer as they did to the person of whom he speaks when alive, nor could Chiabrera have ventured to touch upon them but under the sanction of this person's acknowledgment. He then goes on to say how various and profound was his learning, and how deep a hold it took upon his affections, but that he weaned himself from these things as vanities, and was devoted in later life exclusively to the divine truths of the Gospel as the only knowledge in which he could find perfect rest. Here we are thrown back upon the introductory supplication and made to feel its especial propriety in this case; his life was long, and every part of it bore appropriate fruits. Urbina his birth-place might be proud of him, and the passenger who was entreated to pray for his soul has a wish breathed for his welfare. This composition is a perfect whole, there is nothing arbitrary or mechanical, but it is an organized body, of which the members are bound together by a common life and are all justly proportioned. If I had not gone so much into detail I should have given furtherinstances of Chiabrera's Epitaphs, but I must content myself with saying that if he had abstained from the introduction of heathen mythology, of which he is lavish—an inexcusable fault for an inhabitant of a Christian country, yet admitting of some palliation in an Italian who treads classic soil and has before his eyes the ruins of the temples which were dedicated to those fictitious beings of objects of worship by the majestic people his ancestors—had omitted also some uncharacteristic particulars, and had not on some occasions forgotten that truth is the soul of passion, he would have left his Readers little to regret. I do not mean to say that higher and nobler thoughts may not be found in sepulchral inscriptions than his contain; but he understood his work, the principles upon which he composed are just. The Reader of theFriendhas had proofs of this: one shall be given of his mixed manner, exemplifying some of the points in which he has erred.
O Lelius beauteous flower of gentleness,The fair Anglaia's friend above all friends:O darling of the fascinating LovesBy what dire envy moved did Death uprootThy days e'er yet full blown, and what ill chanceHath robbed Savona of her noblest grace?She weeps for thee and shall for ever weep,And if the fountain of her tears should failShe would implore Sabete to supplyHer need: Sabete, sympathizing stream,Who on his margin saw thee close thine eyesOn the chaste bosom of thy Lady dear,Ah, what do riches, what does youth avail?Dust are our hopes, I weeping did inscribeIn bitterness thy monument, and prayOf every gentle spirit bitterlyTo read the record with as copious tears.
O Lelius beauteous flower of gentleness,The fair Anglaia's friend above all friends:O darling of the fascinating LovesBy what dire envy moved did Death uprootThy days e'er yet full blown, and what ill chanceHath robbed Savona of her noblest grace?She weeps for thee and shall for ever weep,And if the fountain of her tears should failShe would implore Sabete to supplyHer need: Sabete, sympathizing stream,Who on his margin saw thee close thine eyesOn the chaste bosom of thy Lady dear,Ah, what do riches, what does youth avail?Dust are our hopes, I weeping did inscribeIn bitterness thy monument, and prayOf every gentle spirit bitterlyTo read the record with as copious tears.
This epitaph is not without some tender thoughts, but a comparison of it with the one upon the youthful Pozzobonelli (seeFriend, No....) will more clearly shew that Chiabrera has here neglected to ascertain whether the passions expressed were in kind and degree a dispensation of reason, or at least commodities issued under her licence and authority.
The epitaphs of Chiabrera are twenty-nine in number, all of them save two probably little known at this day in their own country and scarcely at all beyond the limits of it; and theReader is generally made acquainted with the moral and intellectual excellence which distinguished them by a brief history of the course of their lives or a selection of events and circumstances, and thus they are individualized; but in the two other instances, namely those of Tasso and Raphael, he enters into no particulars, but contents himself with four lines expressing one sentiment upon the principle laid down in the former part of this discourse, where the subject of an epitaph is a man of prime note.
Torquato Tasso rests within this tomb:This figure weeping from her inmost heartIs Poesy: from such impassioned griefLet every one conclude what this man was.
Torquato Tasso rests within this tomb:This figure weeping from her inmost heartIs Poesy: from such impassioned griefLet every one conclude what this man was.
The epitaph which Chiabrera composed for himself has also an appropriate brevity and is distinguished for its grandeur, the sentiment being the same as that which the Reader has before seen so happily enlarged upon.
As I am brought back to men of first rate distinction and public benefactors, I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing the metrical part of an epitaph which formerly was inscribed in the church of St. Paul's to that Bishop of London who prevailed with William the Conqueror to secure to the inhabitants of the city all the liberties and privileges which they had enjoyed in the time of Edward the Confessor.
These marble monuments to thee thy citizens assigne,Rewards (O Father) farre unfit to those deserts of thine:Thee unto them a faithful friend, thy London people found,And to this towne of no small weight, a stay both sure and sound.Their liberties restorde to them, by means of thee have beene,Their publicke weale by means of thee, large gifts have felt and seene:Thy riches, stocke, and beauty brave, one hour hath them supprest,Yet these thy virtues and good deeds with us for ever rest.
These marble monuments to thee thy citizens assigne,Rewards (O Father) farre unfit to those deserts of thine:Thee unto them a faithful friend, thy London people found,And to this towne of no small weight, a stay both sure and sound.Their liberties restorde to them, by means of thee have beene,Their publicke weale by means of thee, large gifts have felt and seene:Thy riches, stocke, and beauty brave, one hour hath them supprest,Yet these thy virtues and good deeds with us for ever rest.
Thus have I attempted to determine what a sepulchral inscription ought to be, and taken at the same time a survey of what epitaphs are good and bad, and have shewn to what deficiencies in sensibility and to what errors in taste and judgement most commonly are to be ascribed. It was my intention to have given a few specimens from those of the ancients; but I have already I fear taken up too much of the Reader's time. I have not animadverted upon such, alas! far too numerous, as are reprehensible from the want of moral rectitude in thosewho have composed them or given it to be understood that they should he so composed; boastful and haughty panegyrics ludicrously contradicting the solid remembrance of those who knew the deceased; shocking the common sense of mankind by their extravagance, and affronting the very altar with their impious falsehood. Those I leave to general scorn, not however without a general recommendation that they who have offended or may be disposed to offend in this manner, would take into serious thought the heinousness of their transgression.
Upon reviewing what has been written I think it better here to add a few favourable specimens such as are ordinarily found in our country church-yards at this day. If those primary sensations upon which I have dwelt so much be not stifled in the heart of the Reader, they will be read with pleasure, otherwise neither these nor more exalted strains can by him be truly interpreted.
Aged 87 and 83.Not more with silver hairs than virtue crown'dThe good old pair take up this spot of ground:Tread in their steps and you will surely findTheir Rest above, below their peace of mind.At the Last Day I'm sure I shall appear,To meet with Jesus Christ my Saviour dear:Where I do hope to live with Him in bliss.Oh, what a joy at my last hour was this!Aged 3 Months.What Christ said once He said to all,Come unto Me, ye children small:None shall do you any wrong,For to My Kingdom you belong.Aged 10 Weeks.The Babe was sucking at the breastWhen God did call him to his rest.
Aged 87 and 83.
Not more with silver hairs than virtue crown'dThe good old pair take up this spot of ground:Tread in their steps and you will surely findTheir Rest above, below their peace of mind.
At the Last Day I'm sure I shall appear,To meet with Jesus Christ my Saviour dear:Where I do hope to live with Him in bliss.Oh, what a joy at my last hour was this!
Aged 3 Months.
What Christ said once He said to all,Come unto Me, ye children small:None shall do you any wrong,For to My Kingdom you belong.
Aged 10 Weeks.
The Babe was sucking at the breastWhen God did call him to his rest.
In an obscure corner of a country church-yard I once espied, half overgrown with hemlock and nettles, a very small stone laid upon the ground, bearing nothing more than the name of the deceased with the date of birth and death, importing that it was an infant which had been born one day and died the following. I know not how far the Reader may be in sympathywith me; but more awful thoughts of rights conferred, of hopes awakened, of remembrances stealing away or vanishing, were imparted to my mind by that inscription there before my eyes than by any other that it has ever been my lot to meet with upon a tomb-stone.
The most numerous class of sepulchral inscriptions do indeed record nothing else but the name of the buried person; but that he was born upon one day and died upon another. Addison in theSpectatormaking this observation says, 'that he cannot look upon those registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, but as a kind of satire upon the departed persons who had left no other memorial of them than that they were born and that they died.' In certain moods of mind this is a natural reflection; yet not perhaps the most salutary which the appearance might give birth to. As in these registers the name is mostly associated with others of the same family, this is a prolonged companionship, however shadowy: even a tomb like this is a shrine to which the fancies of a scattered family may return in pilgrimage; the thoughts of the individuals without any communication with each other must oftentimes meet here. Such a frail memorial then is not without its tendency to keep families together. It feeds also local attachment, which is the tap-root of the tree of Patriotism.
I know not how I can withdraw more satisfactorily from this long disquisition than by offering to the Reader as a farewell memorial the following Verses, suggested to me by a concise epitaph which I met with some time ago in one of the most retired vales among the mountains of Westmoreland. There is nothing in the detail of the poem which is not either founded upon the epitaph or gathered from enquiries concerning the deceased, made in the neighbourhood.
Beneath that pine which rears its dusky headAloft, and covered by a plain blue stoneBriefly inscribed, a gentle Dalesman lies;From whom in early childhood was withdrawnThe precious gift of hearing. He grew upFrom year to year in loneliness of soul;And this deep mountain valley was to himSoundless with all its streams. The bird of dawnDid never rouse this Cottager from sleepWith startling summons; not for his delightThe vernal cuckoo shouted, not for himMurmured the labouring bee. When stormy windsWere working the broad bosom of the LakeInto a thousand thousand sparkling waves,Rocking the trees, or driving cloud on cloudAlong the sharp edge of yon lofty crags,The agitated scene before his eyeWas silent as a picture; evermoreWere all things silent wheresoe'er he moved.Yet by the solace of his own calm thoughtsUpheld, he duteously pursued the roundOf rural labours: the steep mountain sideAscended with his staff and faithful dog;The plough he guided and the scythe he swayed,And the ripe corn before his sickle fellAmong the jocund reapers. For himself,All watchful and industrious as he was,He wrought not; neither field nor flock he owned;No wish for wealth had place within his mind,No husband's love nor father's hope or care;Though born a younger brother, need was noneThat from the floor of his paternal homeHe should depart to plant himself anew;And when mature in manhood he beheldHis parents laid in earth, no loss ensuedOf rights to him, but he remained well pleasedBy the pure bond of independent love,An inmate of a second family,The fellow-labourer and friend of himTo whom the small inheritance had fallen.Nor deem that his mild presence was a weightThat pressed upon his brother's house; for booksWere ready comrades whom he could not tire;Of whose society the blameless manWas never satiate; their familiar voiceEven to old age with unabated charmBeguiled his leisure hours, refreshed his thoughts,Beyond its natural elevation raisedHis introverted spirit, and bestowedUpon his life an outward dignityWhich all acknowledged. The dark winter night,The stormy day had each its own resource;Song of the Muses, sage historic tale,Science severe, or word of Holy WritAnnouncing immortality and joyTo the assembled spirits of the justFrom imperfection and decay secure:Thus soothed at home, thus busy in the field,To no perverse suspicion he gave way;No languour, peevishness, nor vain complaint.And they who were about him did not failIn reverence or in courtesy; they prizedHis gentle manners, and his peaceful smiles;The gleams of his slow-varying countenanceWere met with answering sympathy and love.At length when sixty years and five were toldA slow disease insensibly consumedThe powers of nature, and a few short stepsOf friends and kindred bore him from his home,Yon cottage shaded by the woody cross,To the profounder stillness of the grave.Nor was his funeral denied the graceOf many tears, virtuous and thoughtful grief,Heart-sorrow rendered sweet by gratitude;And now that monumental stone preservesHis name, and unambitiously relatesHow long and by what kindly outward aidsAnd in what pure contentedness of mindThe sad privation was by him endured.And yon tall pine-tree, whose composing soundWas wasted on the good man's living ear,Hath now its own peculiar sanctity,And at the touch of every wandering breezeMurmurs not idly o'er his peaceful grave.
Beneath that pine which rears its dusky headAloft, and covered by a plain blue stoneBriefly inscribed, a gentle Dalesman lies;From whom in early childhood was withdrawnThe precious gift of hearing. He grew upFrom year to year in loneliness of soul;And this deep mountain valley was to himSoundless with all its streams. The bird of dawnDid never rouse this Cottager from sleepWith startling summons; not for his delightThe vernal cuckoo shouted, not for himMurmured the labouring bee. When stormy windsWere working the broad bosom of the LakeInto a thousand thousand sparkling waves,Rocking the trees, or driving cloud on cloudAlong the sharp edge of yon lofty crags,The agitated scene before his eyeWas silent as a picture; evermoreWere all things silent wheresoe'er he moved.Yet by the solace of his own calm thoughtsUpheld, he duteously pursued the roundOf rural labours: the steep mountain sideAscended with his staff and faithful dog;The plough he guided and the scythe he swayed,And the ripe corn before his sickle fellAmong the jocund reapers. For himself,All watchful and industrious as he was,He wrought not; neither field nor flock he owned;No wish for wealth had place within his mind,No husband's love nor father's hope or care;Though born a younger brother, need was noneThat from the floor of his paternal homeHe should depart to plant himself anew;And when mature in manhood he beheldHis parents laid in earth, no loss ensuedOf rights to him, but he remained well pleasedBy the pure bond of independent love,An inmate of a second family,The fellow-labourer and friend of himTo whom the small inheritance had fallen.Nor deem that his mild presence was a weightThat pressed upon his brother's house; for booksWere ready comrades whom he could not tire;Of whose society the blameless manWas never satiate; their familiar voiceEven to old age with unabated charmBeguiled his leisure hours, refreshed his thoughts,Beyond its natural elevation raisedHis introverted spirit, and bestowedUpon his life an outward dignityWhich all acknowledged. The dark winter night,The stormy day had each its own resource;Song of the Muses, sage historic tale,Science severe, or word of Holy WritAnnouncing immortality and joyTo the assembled spirits of the justFrom imperfection and decay secure:Thus soothed at home, thus busy in the field,To no perverse suspicion he gave way;No languour, peevishness, nor vain complaint.And they who were about him did not failIn reverence or in courtesy; they prizedHis gentle manners, and his peaceful smiles;The gleams of his slow-varying countenanceWere met with answering sympathy and love.At length when sixty years and five were toldA slow disease insensibly consumedThe powers of nature, and a few short stepsOf friends and kindred bore him from his home,Yon cottage shaded by the woody cross,To the profounder stillness of the grave.Nor was his funeral denied the graceOf many tears, virtuous and thoughtful grief,Heart-sorrow rendered sweet by gratitude;And now that monumental stone preservesHis name, and unambitiously relatesHow long and by what kindly outward aidsAnd in what pure contentedness of mindThe sad privation was by him endured.And yon tall pine-tree, whose composing soundWas wasted on the good man's living ear,Hath now its own peculiar sanctity,And at the touch of every wandering breezeMurmurs not idly o'er his peaceful grave.