BOOK VIII.

PATHETIC PIECES.

CHAP. I.

YORICK'S DEATH.

A FEW hours before Yorick breathed his last, Eugenius stepped in with an intent to take his last sight and last farewell of him.-Upon his drawing Yorick's curtain, and asking how he felt himself, Yorick, looking up in his face, took hold of his hand, and, after thanking him for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it was their fate to meet hereafter, he would thank him again and again; he told him, he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip for ever.I hope not, answered Eugenius, with tears trickling down his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke. I hope not, Yorick, said he. Yorick replied, with a look up, and gentle squeeze of Eugenius's hand,-and that was all,but it cut Eugenius to the heart.-Come, come, Yorick, quoth Eugenius, wiping his eyes, andsummoning up the man within him,my dear lad be comforted, -let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this crisis when thou most wantest them ;- -who knows what resources are in store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee? -Yorick laid his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head;

for my part, continued Eugenius, crying bitterly

as

as he uttered the words,-I declare I know not, Yorick, how to part with thee, and would gladly flatter my hopes, added Eugenius, cheering up his voice, that there is still enough left of thee to make a bishop, and that I may live to see it. -I beseech thee, Eugenius, quoth Yorick, taking off his nightcap, as well as he could with his left hand- -his right being still grasped close in that of Eugenius,

-I beseech thee to take a view of my head.I see nothing that ails it, replied Eugenius. Then, alas! my friend, said Yorick, let me tell you that it is so bruised and misshapened with the blows which have been so unhandsomely given me in the dark, that I might say with Sancho Pancha, that should I recover, and "mitres thereupon be suffered "to rain down from Heaven as thick as hail, not one "of them would fit it.”, -Yorick's last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips ready to depart as he uttered this;yet still it was uttered with something of a Cervantic tone ;and as he spoke it, Eugenius could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes ;-faint pic ture of those flashes of his spirit, which (as Shakspeare said of his ancestor,) were wont to set the table in a roar.

Eugenius was convinced from this, that the heart of his friend was broken; "he squeezed h's handand then walked softly out of the room, weeping as he walked. Yorick followed Eugenius with his eyes to the door,he then closed them,

never opened them more.

and

He lies buried in a corner of his church-yard, under a plain marble slab, which his friend Eugenius, by leave of his executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than these three words of scription, sery- ing both for his epitaph and elegy.

Alas! poor YORICK !

Ce

Ten times a day has Yorick's ghost the consolation to hear his monumental inscription read over with such a variety of plaintive tones, as denote a general pity and esteem for lima footway crossing the churchyard close by his grave,--not a passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look on it-and sighing as he walks on,

Alas! poor YORICK!

STERNE.

CHAP. II.

THE BEGGAR'S PETITION.

PITY the sorrows of a poor old man,

Whose trembling limbs have boine him to your

door,

Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span,
O give relief! and Heav'n will bless your store.

These tatter'd clothes my poverty bespeak,
These boary locks proclaim my lengthen'd years;
And many a furrow in my grief-worn cheek
Has been the channel to a flood of tears.

Yon house, erected on the rising ground,
With tempting aspect drew me from my road;
For Plenty there a residence has found,
And Grandeur a magnificent abode.

Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor !
Here, as I crav'd a morsel of their bread.
A pamper'd menial drove me from their door,
To seek a shelter in an humbler shed.

Oh! take me to your hospitable dome;"
Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold !
Short is my passage to the friendly tomb,
For I am poor and miserably olu.

Should

Should I reveal the sources of my grief,
If soft humanity e'er touch'd your breast,
Your hands would not withhold the kind relief,
And tears of pity would not be repress'd.

Heav'n sends misfortunes; why should we repine?
'Tis Heav'n has brought me to the state you see ;
And your condition may be soon like mine,
The child of Sorrow, and of Misery..

A little farm was my paternal lot;

Then like the lark I sprightly. hail'd the morn;
But ah! Oppression forc'd me from my cot,
My cattle died, and blighted was my corn.

My daughter, once the comfort of my age,
Lur'd by a villain from her native home,
Is cast abandon'd on the world's wide stage,
And doom'd in scanty poverty to roam.

My tender wife, sweet soother of
my care i
Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree,
Fell, ling'ring fell, a victim to despair,
And left the world to wretchedness and me.

Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your doorg
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span,
O give relief! and Heav'n will bless your store.

COURTNEY MILMOTI

CHAP

ON THE DEATH OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY.

WHAT beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight

shade

Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade ?
'Tis she-but why that bleeding bosom ger'd,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
O, ever beauteous! ever friendly! tell,
Is it in Heav'n a crime to love too well!
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a Lover's or a Roman's part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think or bravely die?

Why bade ye else, ye pow'rs! her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire!
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods:
'Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of kings and heroes. glows.
Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen pris'ners in the body's cage:
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
Like Eastern kings a lazy state they keep,
And, close confin'd to their own palace, sleep.
From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die)
Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,

And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the soul to its congenial place,

Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good, Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood! See on those ruby lips the trembling breath, Those cheeks now fading at the blast of death:

Cold