On the Roman road visible between Brecknock and Trecastle, near the pass, named Cwm Dwr, (door of the vale,) is an ancient sepulchral stone, on which the only words left of some inscription are "Conjux ejus." "Sic ego componi versus in opa velim."-TIBULLUS. I. LEAVE Honddu's* mountain-bosom'd town, The rocky river thundering down, The green tower crumbling o'er its falls, And yon romantic road explore, The mountain's winding pass, "the valley's door." II. Sunk in the turf, with sculptures rotten, Peeps a long buried burial-stone; Memorial of the long forgotten, With half a tender tale alone, The rest oblivion's own; The oblivion it was raised to mock, Sacred to whom? "Tis nameless as a rock! III. Below, one little urn has kept What domes could not; most peacefully, In that poor earthy shrine, hath slept An underground eternity, "A wife"-while time march'd by, And from earth's face, (her cell o'erstept,) Away tombs, temples, thrones, and empires swept! IV. Gone is that temple's porch with thine, Thou, who in God's own house wouldst lay Thy Christian ashes, Constantine! More meet (low laid by this highway) This humbler Heathen "stay," "Siste viator"s for this wife, Death's dumb pathetic "hail" to passing life. • Aber-Honddu, the Welsh name of Brecknock. Ely tower, once the prison of the Bishop of Ely, where he plotted the overthrow of Richard III. This Roman emperor and convert to Christianity, was the first who was interred within the walls of a church; he was admitted, however, onl to the porch. The Romans, it is well known, buried by the roadside, with this solemn brief appeal of the dead to the passer by. Survivor of all Roman life! V. What dost thou here without thy trust? Forgotten, in Palmyra stands, Smiling at fame, white seen across the sands. VI. Did she, by love's twin-planets guided, Her loved lord's eyes, leave Rome and bliss? Brave their wild seas and savageness: Leave all, brave all, for this? All lonely, leave him to return, Her beauty ashes, and her home an urn? VII. Was she in vain we guess, we ask, Who's wife? the answer's here-death's own! Alas, for man! his long lost fight For life, with nothing's everlasting night! VIII. Oh, how he gropes,-the giant blind! Asked we for whom this stone might rise? O'er universal lost mankind It stands! for man where'er he lies To philosophic eyes: This semi-atom for man's wife, This unit for the myriad dust of life. IX. "Vixit"-does fame no more allow? Ye who earth's wonders do or did; Ye of the "immortal longings;" thou Thou whom the sea-rock's grave and willow, (Prometheus chained—ev'n chained to that death's-pillar!) * Divisos orbe Britannos.-HOR. Alaric, the Goth. His grave was excavated out of the bed of the river Busentinus, diverted from its course till it was closed in, and the secret sealed with the blood of the numerous prisoners who performed the task. x. Rise, Goth-Egyptian-Corsican, Greatest though last! Time-daring ghosts, See all ambition boasts, Which would to after-ages save Man's glories, loves, or mournings from the grave! XI. Some gave to constellations names, Making a tomb-lamp of a star, For man those shine,—but dark their fames; Dim, by dim tombs in history's night, XII. The tomb immortal-not its master, That queen who drank death's ashes made. Yet that of white warm alabaster, Deep in whose snow her lord she laid, Fond breast, for ever unconsoled! At thee hearts kindle, though for ages cold. XIII. Peace to thy cell, then, Heathen wife! For thy death-rites, not paid by us, Nor those threet solemn "farewells," God, Whence Christian men derived the thrice-thrown clod. XIV. Death the inconsolable consoles; Death parts, death reunites, death all Man's tower'd prides, stretching to both poles, Gathers in space-how small! And seal'd for ever from all eyes, Inscribes with two as little words, "Here Lies!" J. DOWNES. The mausoleum of Artemisia. Who, in naming any mausoleum, now thinks of King Mausolus? She who built it to his memory, drank his ashes, and then died of grief, does steal a thought at times. "Vale, vale, nos te ordiquo natura permittet sequemur," was the form of valediction thrice pronounced by Roman mourners taking a last leave of the dead. TITHE COMMUTATION. THE partial measures which were introduced into the last sessions of Parliament for the Composition of Tithes in England, were not passed into law, nor is their loss much to be regretted: for although they doubtless contained, in some particulars, improvements upon the existing law; yet, from their falling far short of that degree of amendment which public opinion requires, they would, to a certainty, have been disregarded, and, therefore, have become practically useless. In Ireland, meanwhile, the question has rapidly travelled to a solution. There, it is no longer to be asked whether tithes shall be compounded for, or be commuted; that question the people have set at rest, by withholding their payment altogether. And it now only remains to be considered, as we trust it may be speedily, (since upon that will depend whether it shall be unopposedly,) in what manner the fund out of which Irish tithes have, heretofore, proceeded, is to be henceforward disposed of, so as to satisfy the interests actually existing in it, and at the same time to make a suitable provision for the general public worship of that country hereafter. It is true that in taking a practical view of the tithe system and its consequences, a broad distinction immediately presents itself between the different circumstances which are attached to, and influence the working of that system in Ireland and in England. In the latter country, however hateful tithes have become, they do not at least labour under the peculiar and aggravated odium of being, in appearance, taken from the votaries of one religion in order to support the ministers of a different and an antagonist creed. We say in appearance, because we are well aware, and willing to admit, that tithes, setting aside the consequences which result in practice from the mode of their collection, ought, in truth, to be considered as property, (we cannot go the length of saying as private property,) but as property which, in most instances, has sprung from a title equal, or it may be paramount to the title of the land out of which they issue, and has devolved in a distinct line of ownership. So that the individual tithe-payer has no more right to exclaim against the distinct existence of this property, than the purchaser of an estate subject to an incumbrance, has a right to quarrel with his seller's mortgagee. This admission of ours, it will be seen, leaves open the question of the goodness of the original title of the tithes, and also all considerations grounded on the incontrovertible fact that a public endowment is substantially public property. But to resume; though the truth we have just admitted, may be comfortable enough to a theologian, and will be allowed its full weight by a philosopher arguing the matter abstractedly, it unfortunately chances to make no impression upon the bulk of the Irish tithe-payers. No power of metaphysics will remove from their minds the settled conviction, that they are placed under a political obligation unjustifiable in principle, of supporting two churches; and where the discussion has been pushed to legal conclusions, they have, in most parts, combined together, so as to prevent, effectually, the sale of the goods and cattle distrained for non-payment of tithe; while in some other parts of the country they have not been satisfied without shooting the proctor, and lapidating the unhappy parson. What then is to be done? Coercion of an entire and united people is a physical impossibility. In Ireland, composition has been tried, and found wanting: and, accordingly, we find that the Report of the Irish Tithe Committee does not hesitate to declare the necessity of an entire abolition of tithes, and of adapting a commuted provision for the clergy in their stead. What the nature of the proposed commutation in all its bearings may be, is as yet unknown to the public. We trust, for the sake of the efficacy of the measure, that it will be accompanied by some suitable provision for the Irish Catholic clergy; for so surely as such a provision, due at once to justice, tolerance, and expediency, is omitted, as certainly will, in our humble judgment, the intended substitution prove impracticable and fruitless, and the Protestant clergy will lose the hoped-for equivalent of their extinguished tithes, and the state the benefit of the promised conciliation. With these remarks we may pass over to the consideration of the question as it concerns our own country, the more immediate subject of our intended observations. Whatever the tithe system in England and Wales might gain in comparison with that existing in Ireland, there is here, also, too much of aversion to its name and nature, and too much of what is really objectionable in its practical operation, to admit of any reasonable hope that it can be much longer preserved, or, indeed, to warrant a wish for its preservation if it could. There are, doubtless, other, and but too many weak points in our church establishment upon which no true friend to religion and social advancement can or ought to shut his eyes. But most of these abuses may at any time, as before long they certainly must, be met by their appropriate remedies, to be supplied either by the church itself, or those who administer its patronage and government. Tithes have been found to be intrinsically, and from the tendency of their nature, at least in the present day, an unsuitable and mischievous institution, remediable by nothing short of utter abolition and reconstruction in a different shape. Nor can this be done without the interposition of the legislature, to be brought about by a large and amicable concurrence of tithe |