On Country Churchyard Epitaphs.

inspiration—would have flown off in a tangent , and at length started a rhapsody , four times as pathetic , six times as flowery , and ten times as long , as the foregoing distich . He would have mentioned " Elysiau fields , " " applauding seraphs , " " morbid destruction fatal

, " " mesengers , " " sepulchral bands , " and Heaven knows what beside ! But he would never , when at the end of his flight , inform us what a reader would most probably wish to know ; the cause of poor John ' s fateand the spot of

, his interment . Rhyme could never have handled the subject in such a manner ;—Reason goes straight to work , and developes the whole catastrophe . And I question whether the shade of John Doley receives not full as much consolationfrom this

, plain , unsophisticated epitajih , as if his death were recounted at a greater length , together with all the aid of flowery diction and poetic hyperbole . I will select another : —

" Gentle reader , who standest by my grave to view , I was on earth , much the same as you ; And as I am , so you must be ; Therefore I say , prepare to follow me . "

We shall have some difficulty in resolving such a metre as this , as I believe we cannot meet with it in any of the British poets . There are , you see , in the first line , twelve feet ;—in the second , nine ;—in the third , eight;—in the last , ten . A most unwarrantable license of version ! Let me

see—I believe I can do it by the Antispastus . * Yes—the first line comes right . Now for the second . Pish ! I can make nothing of the second ! Is it dactylic ? Is it tetrameter catalectic 1 Is it by Jove ! I must give it up , and console myself with that most infallible resource of all ,

—poetic license . But observe , reader , how civilly , and yet how forcibly , he admonishes you of your end . Mark , how he informs you that he has lived , as you do ; that he has died , as you will . In these four lines , a string of moral precepts is contained ,

which many elegiac writers would have dilated into a long , uninteresting , nnintelligible composition , and dignified with the name of an epitaph . Mark also the force of the words "lsay . " They speak volumes—they banish every shade of doubt from our minds . Scepticism itself would do well to listen to them . Take another extract : —

" Here I , the son of John and Mary Brown , ( Who liv'd until Death ' s scythe did cut I down ) Do lie . But when the trumpet last shall sound , Then shall I rise above the ground . " Here again appears that amiable brevit y , which designates a Country Churchyard

Epitaph . It is evident , that the author of it was not a little proud of his family , and was determined that the passing traveller should know who he was . We can plainly perceive that he was iu some measure infected with that most exuberant species

of insanity , genealogical pride . Nor can we blame him . He tells us at once his origin , —he spares us those efforts of patience and labour , which we so often must exert , if we take upon ourselves to peruse the inscriptions beneath which the

bones of many a more illustrious personage repose . How often do we , after having laboured to no purpose in discovering the various ancestors and various intermarriages which such an inscription records , give up our task in disgust ! But the son of John

and Mary Brown obtains a patient reading from all . Despise not his example , ye epitaph writers . Let us , after a few more specimens of the quaint , proceed to the other branch of our subject .

" Here lies a much loved son , for whom we cried He only grieved his parents when he died . " "To the memory of a faithful wife , a friend sincere ; Who died at Kew , and with her child lies sleeping here . "

" My parents dear , shed not the tear , Although I am dead and buried ; Give up your sorrows and your fear , To happier shores I am ferried . " " Death smote me hard ; but though in earth I lie Some day he will be con < uiered , just as I , "