EPITAPHS

AND

INSCRIPTIONS.

EPITAPH I.

ON MRS. MASON,

IN THE CATHEDRAL OF BRISTOL.

TAKE, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear:
Take that best gift which Heav'n so lately gave:
To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care

Her faded form: she bow'd to taste the wave,
And died. Does Youth, does Beauty, read the line?
Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?
Speak, dead MARIA! breathe a strain divine:

Ev'n from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;

Bid them in Duty's sphere as meekly move;

And, if so fair, from vanity as free;

As firm in friendship, and as fond in love.

Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die,
('Twas ev❜n to thee) yet the dread path once trod,
Heav'n lifts its everlasting portals high,

And bids" the pure in heart behold their God.”

EPITAPH II.

ON MISS DRUMMOND,

IN THE CHURCH OF BRODSWORTH, YORKSHIRE.

HERE

ERE sleeps what once was Beauty, once was Grace;

Grace, that with tenderness and sense combin'd
To form that harmony of soul and face,

Where beauty shines the mirror of the mind.
Such was the Maid, that in the morn of youth,
In virgin innocence, in Nature's pride,
Blest with each art that owes its charm to truth,
Sunk in her Father's fond embrace, and died.
He weeps: Oh venerate the holy tear:

Faith lends her aid to ease affliction's load;
The Parent mourns his Child upon her bier,

The Christian yields an Angel to his God.

EPITAPH III.

ON JOHN DEALTRY, M. D.

IN THE CATHEDRAE OF YORK.

HERE o'er the tomb, where DEALTRY's ashes sleep, See Health,* in emblematic anguish weep

She drops her faded wreath; "No more," she cries, "Let languid mortals, with beseeching eyes,

"Implore my feeble aid: it fail'd to save

My own and Nature's guardian from the grave."

NOTE.

*This inscription alludes to the design of the sculpture, which is a figure of Health, with her ancient insignia, in alto relievo, dropping a chaplet on the side of a monumental urn.