FOOT'S CRAY, KENT.

The 18th August I was at Foot's Cray,
To see for an epitaph, I can truly say;
But as I found none, I went merrily on,
And to St. Mary Cray I am certainly gone.

St. Peter's, CANTERBURY.

Touch not the grave, my bones, nor yet the dust,
But let this stone, which stands, be rotten first.

Egham churchyard furnishes the following, which I penciled from their respective grave boards :

ANN, WIFE of John starke, aged 60.

As death was pleased to have his will of me,
I am in hopes my Saviour for to see.

IN MEMORY OF THE SNELLINGS, MAN ANd wife.

In this cold bed, here consummated are
The second nuptials of a happy pair,
Whom envious Death once parted, but in vain,
For now himself has made them one again;
Here wedded in the grave, and 'tis but just,
That they, that were one flesh, should be one dust.

TO WILLIAM TENSEY, SON AND DAUGHTER.

You young and old that passeth by,
Think upon us, and prepare to die.

HENRY THURSTON.

I care not! my soul be not dismayed,
For Jesus C thy debt has paid.

The debt I paid, it was to nature due;
I died and paid, and so must you.

In the churchyard of Harbome, near Birmingham :

Inscribed to the memory of Thomas Birch, who departed this life 10th of March, 1795, aged 73 years. Also Sarah, wife of Thomas Birch, who departed this life, 6th of November, 1801, aged 73 years.

VOL. II.

A good husband and father too,

Such a one as the world scarce ever knew.

T

What God to Adam did testify,

He was resolved his children should come nigh;

For pride and pleasure he did not allow,

But made them get their bread by the sweat of their brow.
A good wife, and mother, and neighbour too;

Such a one as the world scarce ever knew.

Agreeabler couple could not be,

Whatever pleased he, always pleased she;

Every thing that a good wife and mother, and neighbour should be.

Inscribed to the memory of George Birch, who departed this life, 21st of February, 1796, aged 85 years.

When in affliction he did lie,

God did his affliction sanctify:
For as we were told,

He was born again after he was old.

OCKHAM CHURCHYARd, Surrey.

On John Spong, a jobbing carpenter of that parish, who died in 1736.

Who many a sturdy oak had laid along,

Fell'd by death's surer hatchet, here lies Spong.
Posts oft he made, yet ne'er a place could get,
And liv'd by railing, though he was no wit;
Old saws he had although no antiquarian,
And stiles corrected, yet was no grammarian :
Long liv'd he Ockham's premier architect,
And lasting as his fame a tomb t' erect.
In vain we seek an artist such as he,
Whose pales and gates were for eternity:

Here doth he rest from all life's care and follies;
O spare, kind heaven, his fellow-labourer, Hollis.
(To be concluded in our next.)

A FRAGMENT,

"I returned," said he, "a few days since, from a short excursion into the country, and paid my earliest visit to the house of my friend Darnton, partly because I am always happiest there, and partly that I might enquire after the health of the lovely and interesting young Emily, his daughter, who had been slightly indisposed before I left town. As usual, I knocked rather loudly at the door, with the briskness that bespeaks the elevation

of our spirits at finding ourselves about to recommence a pleasant intimacy. During the interval which passed between the demand for admittance being made and granted, my thoughts were employed in imagining all the relations which I should have to make of pleasures and novelties felt and seen during my jaunt. 'Well, Mary,' said I, as the servant opened the door, in a tone of voice that seemed to mean, and would have added, here I am again!"" Rubbing my hands together, I was passing on, with even more than my usual speed and hilarity, towards the parlour, where I already pictured to myself the family sitting round their comfortable fire, and all running to welcome the return of their old friend, after an unwonted absence of a week; when Mary gently staid me, and holding up her finger, said, in a subdued voice, hush! Tears and sobs accompanied the poor girl's interdiction, and seemed to read me the lesson of sorrow which I had soon to learn.

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"And how," said I, "does my charming favourite:" (the half-formed apprehension was already a herald of the truth)-"Ah, sir, 'tis sadly with us since you were here. Two days ago my dear young lady's illness, which had grown more and more since you went away, took a bad turn, and-" Mary could proceed no further, her face told the story.-She was no moreDead!-Yes, Emily was dead. The young, the innocent, the precious, the delight of her sisters, the darling of her parents' heart, the joy of all her acquaintance, had died a few hours before I arrived cut off in the early morning of life, beautiful and gentle as the softening tints that adorn the dawn of nature's day. I went instinctively to the parlour: there all was gloomy and silent, and desolate, and forlorn; every trifling familiar remembrancer put on the features of grief. Upon a small table, which her taste had ornamented, lay the little work-box, that I had given her at her last, her sixteenth birth day, never to be touched again by her innocent hands. Here was her music, her lute, her books, her favourite dog that looked up wistfully in my face, and with tremulous moan appeared to be wondering at his solitude, and my withheld caress. "Poor Florio !" said I, patting his head, "she was better than this world deserved !" 'twas all I could say: I was unable to support the hundred memories of her winning ways, that rushed upon my overflowing heart I burst into tears. The rigid will smile that my tears flowed more plentifully, when on taking out my handkerchief, I remembered that Emily had marked the letters of my name on it with her hair. Let them smile on I envy them not !

"Nor I neither," exclaimed Harnett, who perceived that the company had caught the moody infection from our melancholy friend : 66 we are no stoics to force philosophy beyond the feelings of nature. Prithee go on. These tears (wiping away his own as he spoke) serve now and then to certify the existence of our

humanities, which commerce with the world often half induce one to doubt."

Derenzy continued :-" Assuming the mournful freedom of long intimacy, for I had loved her with all a brother's fondness, I ascended with slow and melancholy steps towards the chamber of the deceased-I reached the door of the outer room, and paused a moment for resolution to lift the latch and penetrate the sanctuary of woe-I entered softly. Alone, in one corner of the room, sat the disconsolate father: he was too much absorbed in misery to notice my approach: his head rested on his hand, his face was haggard, his eyes were fixed, and vacant, and red with watching several times they were raised towards heaven, but speedily withdrawn as if in the first deadening moment of affliction, he wanted courage to seek resignation even from religion. At length his grief found words. "Oh God!" he said, "my child, my child!" The expression broke the spell of abstracted thought he was relieved, and tears fell plentifully on the hand which I had now advanced to grasp his. He rose in silence and (the action wanted not words) led me by the hand to the inner chamber. What a sight! The elder sisters seeing me approach, sobbed aloud as it were with a renewal of their grief, and hid their faces with their hands: a little girl about four years old had crept upon the bed, and with playful action that smote upon the heart, was unconsciously endeavouring to awaken from the sleep of death, her old playmate, her favourite sister. Sweet innocent! she will play with thee no more! The wretched mother's look of agony was fixed on the face of her departed one, "where cold obstruction's apathy appalled the gazing mourner's heart;" I saw a maternal tear fall upon it, for tender ever are a mother's sorrows. She just raised her head, her eyes met mine, they fell again. She was a mother, and her all of thought and care was on a mother's loss. "I saw the iron enter her soul !" Not a word was spoken; silence could describe, no colouring could paint the scene. The living stood around, and silently gazed on the loveliest image of dissolution that ever heaven formed to deprive death of its terrors. 'Twas a picture of tranquillity. A smile that yet played about her lips bespoke that her end had been placid; blest with the peace of innocence, and that her gentlest soul had calmly left its earthly tenement, and taken its flight in quiet expiration to the regions of eternal peace. I had no heart for consolation, which, ill timed, defeats its end besides the scene itself was a lesson, a monitor. 'Twas silent death and yet 'twas eloquence. It spake aloud of life's uncertain tenure; it whispered "Be virtuous aud we shall meet again!" "Yes," my soul exclaimed inwardly, yes, fair spirit, we shall meet thee in happier climes, where pains and parting can assail the heart no more. Oh, may my latter end be like thine!" Impulsively at the thought I knelt beside the

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bed, and would have prayed. I pressed her dead hand to my lips: 'twas icy cold-my spirits sunk-my heart burned within me-my temples throbbed-I scarcely remember how I reached my lodgings

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"I have," he added, "to-day been attending the agonized family on the last mournful duties we can perform for our friends on earth. She was borne to the grave according to her own request by her four sisters. At that part of the solemn and impressive service of the dead, where the earth was thrown on the lid of the coffin, under which lay tranced in death, the innocent form of one so loved-" he could not pursue the subject, his heart seemed to be bursting; grief for a loss so dear should find its way. Harnett kindly shook the sensitive Derenzy by the hand, and said in a soothing manner : "6 Happily my friend, happily for us there is a consolation beyond earthly consolation :-though we shall see her face on earth no more, yet it is promised that a steady continuance in virtuous exertion, shall usher us at the last, together with her whose loss we now lament, purified from the corruption of the world, into the peaceful paradise where sorrows cannot enter.

There death can boast no conquering power;
She'll rise a star-that fell a flower!

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CHINESE JUSTICE AND MERCY.

A man of letters, called Ouang-si-Heou, lived in the country as a philospher, amusing himself with writing and study. To enliven his works, and make them more read, he sometimes inserted in them what were deemed too bold expressions and reprehensible ideas. He was sixty years old, and had acquired wealth and reputation by his labours, when, in 1777, an enemy or a rival aceused him. He was arrested, tried, and found guilty of the four following crimes. 1. The having dared to make an abridgment of the great dictionary of Kang-hi, and even in some places to contradict it. It is to be obseved, that Kang-hi was an emperor, by whom or by whose direction, the dictionary was made. 2. In the preface of this abridgment, he has had the audacity to use the litle names of the emperor-a want of respect, say the judges, that makes us tremble. We must add, that, in speaking of the emperors of China, it is not permitted to use the names which they bore before their accession to the throne: these names are ineffable in China. 3. The author has pretended to be a descendant of Hoang-ti, by