The Reader, I am sure, will thank me for the above Quotation, which, though from a strange book, is one of the finest passages of modern English prose.

P. 136. Line 19.

"Tis, by comparison, an easy task

Earth to despise," &c.

See, upon this subject, Baxter's most interesting review of his own opinions and sentiments in the decline of life. It may be found (lately reprinted) in Dr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography.

P. 139. Line 18.

"Alas! the endowment of immortal Power,
Is matched unequally with custom, time," &c.

This subject is treated at length in the Ode at the conclusion of the fourth volume.

"Knowing the heart of Man is set to be," &c.

The passage quoted from Daniel is taken from a poem addressed to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, and the two last lines, printed in Italics, are by him translated from Seneca. The whole Poem is very beautiful. I will transcribe four stanzas from it, as they contain an admirable picture of the state of a wise Man's mind in a time of public commotion.

Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks

Of Tyrant's threats, or with the surly brow
Of Power, that proudly sits on others' crimes;

Charged with more crying sins than those he checks.
The storms of sad confusion that may grow

Up in the present for the coming times,
Appal not him; that hath no side at all,

But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.

Although his heart (so near allied to earth)
Cannot but pity the perplexed state
Of troublous and distressed mortality,
That thus make way unto the ugly Birth
Of their own Sorrows, and do still beget
Affliction upon Imbecility:

Yet seeing thus the course of things must run,
He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done.

And whilst distraught Ambition compasses,
And is encompassed, while as Craft deceives,
And is deceived: whilst Man doth ransack Man,
And builds on blood, and rises by distress;
And th' Inheritance of desolation leaves
To great-expecting Hopes: He looks thereon,
As from the shore of Peace, with unwet eye,
And bears no venture in Impiety.

Thus, Lady, fares that Man that hath prepared
A Rest for his desires; and sees all things

Beneath him; and hath learned this Book of Man,

Full of the notes of frailty; and compared
The best of Glory with her sufferings :

By whom, I see, you labour all you can

To plant your heart; and set your thoughts as near
His glorious Mansion as your powers can bear.

Leo. You, Sir, would help me to the History
Of half these Graves?

Priest.

For eight-score winters past, With what I've witnessed, and with what I've heard, Perhaps I might;

By turning o'er these hillocks one by one,

We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round;

Yet all in the broad high-way of the world.

P. 228. Line 23.

See Vol. I. p.132.

"And suffering Nature grieved that one should die.'

P. 229. Line 1.

Southey's Retrospect.

"And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards ?”

The sentiments and opinions here uttered are in unison with those expressed in the following Essay upon Epitaphs, which was furnished by the author for Mr. Coleridge's periodical work, the Friend; and as they are dictated by a spirit congenial to that which pervades this and the two succeeding

books, the sympathising reader will not be displeased to see the Essay here annexed.

ESSAY UPON EPITAPHS.

Ir needs scarcely be said, that an Epitaph presupposes a Monument, upon which it is to be engraven. Almost all Nations have wished that certain external signs should point out the places where their Dead are interred. Among savage Tribes unacquainted with Letters, this has mostly been done either by rude stones placed near the Graves, or by Mounds of earth raised over them. This custom proceeded obviously from a twofold desire; first, to guard the remains of the deceased from irreverent approach or from savage violation; and, secondly, to preserve their memory. "Never any," says Camden, "neglected burial but some savage Nations; as the Bactrians, which cast their dead to the dogs; some varlet Philosophers, as Diogenes, who desired to be devoured of fishes; some dissolute Courtiers, as Mecænas, who was wont to say, Non tumulum curo; sepelit natura relictos.

I'm careless of a Grave:

Nature her dead will save."

As soon as Nations had learned the use of letters, Epitaphs were inscribed upon these Monuments; in order that their intention might be more surely and adequately fulfilled. I have derived Monuments and Epitaphs from two sources of feeling but these do in fact resolve themselves into one. : invention of Epitaphs, Weever, in his Discourse of Funeral Monuments, says rightly, "proceeded from the presage or fore-feeling of Immortality, implanted in all men naturally,

The

and is referred to the Scholars of Linus the Theban Poet, who flourished about the year of the World two thousand seven hundred; who first bewailed this Linus their Master, when he was slain, in doleful verses, then called of him ŒŒlina, afterwards Epitaphia, for that they were first sung at burials, after engraved upon the Sepulchres.”

And, verily, without the consciousness of a principle of Immortality in the human soul, Man could never have had awakened in him the desire to live in the remembrance of his fellows: mere love, or the yearning of Kind towards Kind, could not have produced it. The Dog or Horse perishes in the field, or in the stall, by the side of his companions, and is incapable of anticipating the sorrow with which his surrounding Associates shall bemoan his death, or pine for his loss; he cannot pre-conceive this regret, he can form no thought of it; and therefore cannot possibly have a desire to leave such regret or remembrance behind him. Add to the principle of love, which exists in the inferior animals, the faculty of reason which exists in Man alone; will the conjunction of these account for the desire? Doubtless it is a necessary consequence of this conjunction; yet not I think as a direct result, but only to be come at through an intermediate thought, viz. that of an intimation or assurance within us, that some part of our nature is imperishable. At least the precedence, in order of birth, of one feeling to the other, is unquestionable. If we look back upon the days of childhood, we shall find that the time is not in remembrance when, with respect to our own individual Being, the mind was without this assurance; whereas, the wish to be remembered by our Friends or Kindred after Death, or even in Absence, is, as we shall