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der their countenance, the human affections are gra-
dually formed and opened out. This is not the place
to enter into the recesses of these investigations; but
the subject requires me here to make a plain avowal,
that, for my own part, it is to me inconceivable, that
the sympathies of love towards each other, which grow
with our growth, could ever attain any new strength,
or even preserve the old, after we had received from
the outward senses the impression of Death, and were
in the habit of having that impression daily renewed and
its accompanying feeling brought home to ourselves,
and to those we love; if the same were not counteracted
by those communications with our internal Being, which
are anterior to all these experiences, and with which
revelation coincides, and has through that coincidence
alone (for otherwise it could not possess it) a power to
affect us.
I confess, with me the conviction is abso-
lute, that, if the impression and sense of Death were
not thus counterbalanced, such a hollowness would
pervade the whole system of things, such a want of cor-
respondence and consistency, a disproportion so as-things-of sorrow and of tears.
tounding betwixt means and ends, that there could be
no repose, no joy. Were we to grow up unfostered by
this genial warmth, a frost would chill the spirit, so
penetrating and powerful, that there could be no mo-
tions of the life of love; and infinitely less could we
have any wish to be remembered after we had passed
away from a world in which each man had moved
about like a shadow.-If, then, in a Creature endowed
with the faculties of foresight and reason, the social af-
fections could not have unfolded themselves uncounte-
nanced by the faith that Man is an immortal being;
and if, consequently, neither could the individual dying
have had a desire to survive in the remembrance of his
fellows, nor on their side could they have felt a wish to
preserve for future times vestiges of the departed; it
follows, as a final inference, that without the belief in
Immortality, wherein these several desires originate,
neither monuments nor epitaphs, in affectionate or
laudatory commemoration of the Deceased, could have
existed in the world.

tation of a rational, but of an immortal Soul. Each
of these Sages was in Sympathy with the best feelings
of our Nature; feelings which, though they seem op-
posite to each other, have another and a finer connec-
tion than that of contrast.-It is a connection formed
through the subtle progress by which, both in the na-
tural and the moral world, qualities pass insensibly into
their contraries, and things revolve upon each other.
As, in sailing upon the orb of this Planet, a voyage
towards the regions where the sun sets, conducts gra-
dually to the quarter where we have been accustomed
to behold it come forth at its rising; and, in like man-
ner, a voyage towards the east, the birth-place in our
imagination of the morning, leads finally to the quarter
where the Sun is last seen when he departs from our
eyes; so the contemplative Soul, travelling in the direc
tion of mortality, advances to the Country of everlast-
ing Life; and, in like manner, may she continue to
explore those cheerful tracts, till she is brought back,
for her advantage and benefit, to the land of transitory

Simonides, it is related, upon landing in a strange Country, found the Corse of an unknown person, lying by the Sea-side; he buried it, and was honoured throughout Greece for the piety of that Act. Another ancient Philosopher, chancing to fix his eyes upon a dead Body, regarded the same with slight, if not with contempt; saying, «see the Shell of the flown Bird!» But it is not to be supposed that the moral and tenderhearted Simonides was incapable of the lofty movements of thought, to which that other Sage gave way at the moment while his soul was intent only upon the indestructible being; nor, on the other hand, that he, in whose sight a lifeless human Body was of no more value than the worthless Shell from which the living fowl had departed, would not, in a different mood of mind, have been affected by those earthly considerations which had incited the philosophic Poet to the performance of that pious duty. And with regard to this latter we may be assured that, if he had been destitute of the capability of communing with the more exalted thoughts that appertain to human Nature, he would have cared no more for the Corse of the Stranger than for the dead body of a Seal or Porpoise which might have been cast up by the Waves. We respect the corporeal frame of Man, not merely because it is the habi

On a midway point, therefore, which commands the thoughts and feelings of the two Sages whom we have represented in contrast, does the Author of that species of composition, the Laws of which it is our present purpose to explain, take his stand. Accordingly, recurring to the twofold desire of guarding the Remains of the deceased and preserving their memory, it may be said that a sepulchral Monument is a tribute to a Man as a human Being; and that an Epitaph, (in the | ordinary meaning attached to the word) includes this general feeling and something more; and is a record to preserve the memory of the dead, as a tribute due to his individual worth, for a satisfaction to the sorrowing hearts of the Survivors, and for the common benefit of the living: which record is to be accomplished, not in a general manner, but, where it can, in close connection with the bodily remains of the deceased: and these, it may be added, among the modern Nations of Europe are deposited within, or contiguous to their places of worship. In ancient times, as is well known, it was the custom to bury the dead beyond the Walls of Towns and Cities; and among the Greeks and Romans they were frequently interred by the waysides.

I could here pause with pleasure, and invite the Reader to indulge with me in contemplation of the advantages which must have attended such a practice. We might ruminate upon the beauty which the Monuments, thus placed, must have borrowed from the surrounding images of Nature-from the trees, the wild flowers, from a stream running perhaps within sight or hearing, from the beaten road stretching its weary length hard by. Many tender similitudes must these objects have presented to the mind of the Traveller leaning upon one of the Tombs, or reposing in the coolness of its shade, whether he had halted from. weariness or in compliance with the invitation, « Pause, Traveller!» so often found upon the Monuments. And to its Epitaph also must have been supplied strong appeals to visible appearances or immediate impressions, lively and affecting analogies of Life as a JourneyDeath as a Sleep overcoming the tired Wayfarer-of Misfortune as a Storm that falls suddenly upon himof Beauty as a Flower that passeth away, or of innocent pleasure as one that may be gathered-of Virtue that standeth firm as a Rock against the beating Waves;— ¦

I of Пope

A Village Church-yard, lying as it does in the lap of Nature, may indeed be most favourably contrasted with that of a Town of crowded Population; and Sepulture

As, then, both in Cities and in Villages, the Dead are deposited in close connection with our places of worship, with us the composition of an Epitaph naturally turns, still more than among the Nations of Antiquity, upon the most serious and solemn affections of the human mind; upon departed Worth-upon personal or social Sorrow and Admiration-upon Religion, indi

undermined insensibly like the Poplar by the side of the River that has fed it,» or blasted in a moment like a Pine-tree by the stroke of lightning upon the Mountain-top-of admonitions and heart-therein combines many of the best tendencies which stirring remembrances, like a refreshing Breeze that belong to the mode practised by the Ancients, with comes without warning, or the taste of the waters of an others peculiar to itself. The sensations of pious cheer¦ unexpected Fountain. These, and similar suggestions, fulness, which attend the celebration of the Sabbath-day must have given, formerly, to the language of the sense- in rural places, are profitably chastised by the sight of less stone a voice enforced and endeared by the be- the Graves of Kindred and Friends, gathered together nignity of that Nature with which it was in unison.- in that general Home towards which the thoughtful yet We, in modern times, have lost much of these advan-happy Spectators themselves are journeying. Hence a tages; and they are but in a small degree counter- Parish Church, in the stillness of the Country, is a balanced to the Inhabitants of large Towns and Cities, visible centre of a community of the living and the by the custom of depositing the Dead within, or con- dead; a point to which are habitually referred the tiguous to, their places of worship; however splendid nearest concerns of both. or imposing may be the appearance of those Edifices, or however interesting or salutary the recollections associated with them. Even were it not true that Tombs lose their monitory virtue when thus obtruded upon the Notice of Men occupied with the cares of the World, and too often sullied and defiled by those cares, yet still, when Death is in our thoughts, nothing can make amends for the want of the soothing influences of Na-vidual and social-upon Time, and upon eternity. ture, and for the absence of those types of renovation and decay, which the fields and woods offer to the notice of the serious and contemplative mind. To feel the force of this sentiment, let a man only compare in imagination the unsightly manner in which our Monuments are crowded together in the busy, noisy, unclean, and almost grassless Church-yard of a large Town, with the still seclusion of a Turkish Cemetery, in some remote place; and yet further sanctified by the Grove of Cypress in which it is embosomed. Thoughts in the same temper as these have already been expressed with true sensibility by an ingenuous Poet of the present day. The subject of his Poem is « All Saints Church, | Derby:» he has been deploring the forbidding and unseemly appearance of its burial-ground, and uttering a wish, that in past times the practice had been adopted of interring the Inhabitants of large Towns in the Country.

Then in some rural, calm, sequestered spot,
Where healing Nature her benignant look
Ne'er changes, save at that lorn season, when,
With tresses drooping o'er her sable stole,
She yearly mourns the mortal doom of man,
Her noblest work (so Israel's virgins erst,
With annual moan upon the mountains wept
Their fairest gone), there in that rural scene,
So placid, so congenial to the wish
The Christian feels, of peaceful rest within
The silent grave, I would have strayed:

-wandered forth, where the cold dew of beaven
Lay on the humbler graves around, what time
The pale moon gazed upon the turfy mounds,
Pensive, as though like me, in lonely muse,
'T were brooding on the Dead inhumed beneath.
There while with him, the holy man of Uz,
O'er human destiny I sympathized,
Counting the long, long periods prophecy
Decrees to roll, ere the great day arrives
Of resurrection, oft the blue-eyed Spring
Had met me with her blossoms, as the Dove,
Of old, returned with olive leaf, to cheer
The Patriarch mourning over a world destroyed:
And I would bless her visit; for to me
'Tis sweet to trace the consonance that links
As one, the works of Nature and the word
Of God.

Jonx EDWARDS.

Accordingly it suffices, in ordinary cases, to secure a composition of this kind from censure, that it contains nothing that shall shock or be inconsistent with this spirit. But to entitle an Epitaph to praise, more than this is necessary. It ought to contain some Thought or Feeling belonging to the mortal or immortal part of our Nature touchingly expressed; and if that be done, however general or even trite the sentiment may be, every man of pure mind will read the words with pleasure and gratitude. A Husband bewails a Wife; a Parent breathes a sigh of disappointed hope over a lost Child; a Son utters a sentiment of filial reverence for a departed Father or Mother; a Friend perhaps inscribes an encomium recording the companionable qualities, or the solid virtues, of the Tenant of the Grave, whose departure has left a sadness upon his memory. This, and a pious admonition to the Living, and a humble expression of Christian confidence in Immortality, is the language of a thousand Church-yards; and it does not often happen that any thing, in a greater degree discriminate or appropriate to the Dead or to the Living, is to be found in them. This want of discrimination has been ascribed by Dr Johnson, in his Essay upon the Epitaphs of Pope, to two causes; first, the scantiness of the Objects of human praise; and, secondly, the want of variety in the Characters of Men; or, to use his own words, « to the fact, that the greater part of Mankind have no character at all.» Such language may be holden without blame among the generalities of common conversation; but does not become a Critic and a Moralist speaking seriously upon a serious Subject. The objects of admiration in Human-nature are not scanty, but abundant; and every Man has a Character of his own, to the eye that has skill to perceive it. The real cause of the acknowledged want of discrimination in sepulchral memorials is this: That to analyse the Characters of others, especially of those whom we love, is not a common or natural employment of Men at any time. We are not anxious unerringly to understand the constitution of the Minds of those who have soothed, who have cheered, who have supported us: with whom we have been long and daily pleased or delighted. The affections are their own justification.

The Light of Love in our Hearts is a satisfactory evidence that there is a body of worth in the minds of our friends or kindred, whence that Light has proceeded. We shrink from the thought of placing their merits and defects to be weighed against each other in the nice balance of pure intellect; nor do we find much temptation to detect the shades by which a good quality or virtue is discriminated in them from an excellence known by the same general name as it exists in the mind of another; and, least of all, do we incline to these refinements when under the pressure of Sorrow, Admiration, or Regret, or when actuated by any of those feelings which incite men to prolong the memory of their Friends and Kindred, by records placed in the bosom of the all-uniting and equalising Receptacle of the Dead.

exist; yet, the object being looked at through this medium, parts and proportions are brought into distinct view, which before had been only imperfectly or unconsciously seen: it is truth hallowed by love-the joint offspring of the worth of the Dead and the affections of the Living?-This may easily be brought to the test. Let one, whose eyes have been sharpened by personal hostility to discover what was amiss in the character of a good man, hear the tidings of his death, and what a change is wrought in a moment!-Epmity melts away; and, as it disappears, unsightliness, disproportion, and deformity, vanish; and, through the influence of commiseration, a harmony of love and beauty succeeds. Bring such a Man to the Tombstone on which shall be inscribed an Epitaph on his Adversary, composed in the spirit which we have recommended. Would he turn The first requisite, then, in an Epitaph is, that it from it as from an idle tale! No-the thoughtful look, should speak, in a tone which shall sink into the heart, the sigh, and perhaps the involuntary tear, would testhe general language of humanity as connected with the tify that it had a sane, a generous, and good meaning; subject of Death-the source from which an Epitaph and that on the Writer's mind had remained an impresproceeds; of death and of life. To be born and to die sion which was a true abstract of the character of the are the two points in which all men feel themselves to deceased; that his gifts and graces were remembered in be in absolute coincidence. This general language may the simplicity in which they ought to be remembered. be uttered so strikingly as to entitle an Epitaph to high The composition and quality of the mind of a virtuous praise; yet it cannot lay claim to the highest unless man, contemplated by the side of the Grave where his other excellencies be superadded. Passing through all body is mouldering, ought to appear, and be felt as intermediate steps, we will attempt to determine at once something midway between what he was on Earth what these excellencies are, and wherein consists the walking about with his living frailties, and what he perfection of this species of composition. It will be may be presumed to be as a Spirit in Heaven. found to lie in a due proportion of the common or universal feeling of humanity to sensations excited by a distinct and clear conception, conveyed to the Reader's mind, of the Individual, whose death is deplored and whose memory is to be preserved; at least of his character as, after death, it appeared to those who loved him and lament his loss. The general sympathy ought to be quickened, provoked, and diversified, by particular thoughts, actions, images,-circumstances of age, occupation, manner of life, prosperity which the Deceased had known, or adversity to which he had been subject; and these ought to be bound together and solemnized into one harmony by the general sympathy. The two powers should temper, restrain, and exalt each other. The Reader ought to know who and what the Man was whom he is called upon to think of with interest. A distinct conception should be given (implicitly where it can, rather than explicitly) of the Individual lamented. But the Writer of an Epitaph is not an Anatomist who dissects the internal frame of the mind; he is not even a Painter who executes a portrait at leisure and in entire tranquillity: his delineation, we must remember, is performed by the side of the Grave; and, what is more, the grave of one whom he loves and admires. What purity and brightness is that virtue clothed in, the image of which must no longer bless our living eyes! The character of a deceased Friend or beloved Kinsman is not seen, no-nor ought to be seen, otherwise than as a Tree through a tender haze or a luminous mist, that spiritualizes and beautifies it; that takes away indeed, but only to the end that the parts which are not abstracted may appear more dignified and lovely, may impress and affect the more. Shall we say, then, that this is not truth, not a faithful image; and that accordingly the purposes of commemoration cannot be answered?—It is truth, and of the highest order! for, though doubtless things are not apparent which did

It suffices, therefore, that the Trunk and the mais Branches of the Worth of the Deceased be boldly and unaffectedly represented. Any further detail, minutely and scrupulously pursued, especially if this be done with laborious and antithetic discriminations, must inevitably frustrate its own purpose; forcing the passing Spectator to this conclusion,-either that the Dead did not possess the merits ascribed to him, or that they who have raised a monument to his memory, and must therefore be supposed to have been closely connected with him, were incapable of perceiving those merits; or at least during the act of composition had lost sight of them; for, the Understanding having been so busy in its petty occupation, how could the heart of the Mourner be other than cold? and in either of these cases, whether the fault be on the part of the buried Person or the Survivors, the Memorial is unaffecting and profitless.

Much better is it to fall short in discrimination than to pursue it too far, or to labour it unfeelingly. For in no place are we so much disposed to dwell upon those points, of nature and condition, wherein all Men resemble each other, as in the Temple where the universal Father is worshipped, or by the side of the Grave which gathers all Human Beings to itself, and « equalizes the lofty and the low.» We suffer and we weep with the same heart; we love and are anxious for one another in one spirit; our hopes look to the same quarter; and the virtues by which we are all to be furthered and supported, as patience, meekness, goodwill, temperance, and temperate desires, are in an equal degree the concern of us all. Let an Epitaph, then, | contain at least these acknowledgments to our common nature; nor let the sense of their importance be sacrificed to a balance of opposite qualities or minute distinctions in individual character; which if they do not, (as will for the most part be the case) when examined. resolve themselves into a trick of words, will, even

few.

when they are true and just, for the most part be, tions were referred to the consciousness of Immortality grievously out of place; for, as it is probable that few as their primal source. only have explored these intricacies of human nature, so can the tracing of them be interesting only to a But an Epitaph is not a proud Writing shut up for the studious; it is exposed to all, to the wise and the most ignorant; it is condescending, perspicuous, and lovingly solicits regard; its story and admonitions are brief, that the thoughtless, the busy, and indolent, may not be deterred, nor the impatient tired; the stooping Old Man cons the engraven record like a second horn-book;-the Child is proud that he can read it-and the Stranger is introduced by its mediation to the company of a Friend: it is concerning all, and for all-in the Churchyard it is open to the day; the sun looks down upon the stone, and the rains of Heaven beat against it.

I do not speak with a wish to recommend that an Epitaph should be cast in this mould preferably to the still more common one, in which what is said comes from the Survivors directly; but rather to point out how natural those feelings are which have induced men, in all states and ranks of Society, so frequently to adopt this mode. And this I have done chiefly in order that the laws, which ought to govern the composition of the other, may be better understood. This latter mode, namely, that in which the Survivors speak in their own Persons, seems to me upon the whole greatly preferable: as it admits a wider range of notices; and, above all, because, excluding the fiction which is the groundwork of the other, it rests upon a more solid basis.

Enough has been said to convey our notion of a perfect Epitaph; but it must be observed that one is meant which will best answer the general ends of that species of composition. According to the course pointed out, the worth of private life, through all varieties of situation and character, will be most honourably and profitably preserved in memory. Nor would the model

Yet, though the Writer who would excite sympathy is bound in this case more than in any other, to give proof that he himself has been moved, it is to be remembered, that to raise a Monument is a sober and a reflective act; that the inscription which it bears is intended to be permanent, and for universal perusal; | and that, for this reason, the thoughts and feelings recommended less suit public Men, in all instances save expressed should be permanent also-liberated from that weakness and anguish of sorrow which is in nature transitory, and which with instinctive decency retires from notice. The passions should be subdued, the emotions controlled; strong indeed, but nothing ungovernable or wholly involuntary. Seemliness requires this, and truth requires it also: for how can the Narrator otherwise be trusted? Moreover, a Grave is a tranquillizing object: resignation in course of time springs up from it as naturally as the wild flowers, besprinkling the turf with which it may be covered, or gathering round the monument by which it is defended, The very form and substance of the monument which has received the inscription, and the appearance of the letters, testifying with what a slow and laborious hand they must have been engraven, might seem to reproach the Author who had given way upon this occasion to transports of mind, or to quick turns of conflicting passion; though the same might constitute the life and beauty of a funeral Oration or elegiac Poem.

These sensations and judgments, acted upon perhaps unconsciously, have been one of the main causes why Epitaphs so often personate the Deceased, and represent him as speaking from his own Tomb-stone. The departed Mortal is introduced telling you himself that his pains are gone; that a state of rest is come; and he conjures you to weep for him no longer. He admonishes with the voice of one experienced in the vanity of those affections which are confined to earthly objects, and gives a verdict like a superior Being, performing the office of a Judge, who has no temptations to mislead him, and whose decision cannot but be dispassionate. Thus is Death disarmed of its sting, and affliction unsubstantialized. By this tender fiction, the Survivors bind themselves to a sedater sorrow, and employ the intervention of the imagination in order that the reason may speak her own language earlier than she would otherwise have been enabled to do. This shadowy interposition also harmoniously unites the two worlds of the Living and the Dead by their appropriate affections. And I may observe, that here we have an additional proof of the propriety with which sepulchral inscrip

of those persons who by the greatness of their services
in the employments of Peace or War, or by the sur-
passing excellence of their works in Art, Literature, or
Science, have made themselves not only universally
known, but have filled the heart of their Country with
everlasting gratitude. Yet I must here pause to correct
myself. In describing the general tenour of thought
which Epitaphs ought to hold, I have omitted to say,
that, if it be the actions of a Man, or even some one
conspicuous or beneficial act of local or general utility,
which have distinguished him, and excited a desire that
he should be remembered, then, of course, ought the
attention to be directed chiefly to those actions or that
act; and such sentiments dwelt upon as naturally arise
out of them or it. Having made this necessary dis-
tinction, I proceed.-The mighty benefactors of man-
kind, as they are not only known by the immediate Sur-
vivors, but will continue to be known familiarly to
latest Posterity, do not stand in need of biographic
sketches, in such a place; nor of delineations of cha-
racter to individualize them. This is already done by
their Works, in the Memories of Men. Their naked
names and a grand comprehensive sentiment of civic
Gratitude, patriotic Love, or human Admiration; or the
utterance of some elementary Principle most essential
in the constitution of true Virtue; or an intuition,
communicated in adequate words, of the sublimity of
intellectual Power,-these are the only tribute which
can here be paid-the only offering that upon such an
Altar would not be unworthy!

What needs my Shakspeare for his bonoured bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones,
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear Son of Memory, great Heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a live-long Monument,
And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.

Page 304, col. 1.

And spires whose silent finger points to Heaven.
An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches

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decay; and that all things, with an uninterrupted course, tend to dissolution and death: I therefore, etc. Page 323, col. 1.

Earth has lent

Her waters, Air her breezes.

In treating this subject, it was impossible not to recollect, with gratitude, the pleasing picture, which, in his Poem of the Fleece, the excellent and amiable Dyer has given of the influences of manufacturing industry upon the face of this Island. He wrote at a time when machinery was first beginning to be introduced, and his benevolent heart prompted him to augur from it nothing but good. Truth has compelled me to dweil upon the baneful effects arising out of an ill-regulated and excessive application of powers so admirable in themselves.

Page 329, col. 2.

Binding herself by Statute.

The discovery of Dr Bell affords marvellous facilities for carrying this into effect, and it is impossible to over rate the benefit which might accrue to humanity from the universal application of this simple engine under an enlightened and conscientious government.

THE END.

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