ON SIR JOHN Guise.

HERE lies

Sir John Guise:

No one laughs,

No one cries;
Where he is gone,

And how he fares,

No one knows,

And no one cares.

ON MR. CUMMING.

"GIVE me the best of men," said Death
To Nature: "quick, no humming!”
She sought the man who lies beneath,
And answer'd, "Death, he's Cumming."

IN PETERBORO' CHURCHYARD.

READER, pass on, nor idly waste your time,
In bad biography, or bitter rhyme :

For what I am, this cumbrous clay insures,
And what I was is no affair of yours.

74 "Works on wit were no doubt manifold that were cast adrift by Archie Armstrong, Somers, Pasquil, Peele, Tarleton, Skelton, Scoggin, Spiller, Aston, Haines, Pinkethman, and all those other professional jokers and jesters who preceded that Jack Mottley, the dramatist, who, in 1739, published his 'Collection of the most brilliant Jests, the politest

ON JOE MILLER, THE JESTER, OB. 1738.7

IF humour, wit, and honesty could save
The humorous, witty, honest, from the grave,
The grave had not so soon this tenant found,
Whom honesty, wit, and humour crown'd.

Or could esteem and love preserve our breath,
And guard us longer from the stroke of death;
The stroke of death on him had later fell,
Whom all mankind esteem'd and loved so well.

ON A STONE THAT COVERS THE REMAINS OF THE
FATHER, Mother, and Brother of Pitt,
FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM.

YE sacred spirits! while your friends, distress'd,
Weep o'er your ashes, and lament the bless'd;
O, let the pensive muse inscribe that stone,
And with the general sorrow mix her own:
The pensive muse, who, from this mournful hour
Shall raise her voice and wake the strings no more;
Of love, of duty, this last pledge receive,-
'Tis all a brother, all a son can give.

Chatham.

Repartees, the most elegant Bon-mots, and most pleasant Short Stories in the English language, under the now worldfamed title of Joe Miller's Jests, or the Wits' Vade-mecum.'" -London Review, Jan. 20, 1866.

ON ANN POWELL, IN HALES OWEN CHURCHYARD

HERE, here she lies, a budding rose,

Blasted before its bloom,

Whose innocence did sweets disclose,
Beyond that flower's perfume.

To those who for her death are grieved,
This consolation's given,

She's from the storms of life relieved

To shine more bright in heaven.

Shenstone.75

IN WINGFIELD CHURCHYARD, SUFFOLK. POPE boldly asserts (some think the maxim odd), "An honest man's the noblest work of God."

If this assertion is from error clear,

One of the noblest works of God lies here.

ON A CORONER WHO HANGED HIMSELF.

HE lived and died

By suicide.

ON A POOR WOMAN.

HERE I lie at the chancel door,

Here I lie, because I'm poor:

The farther in, the more you pay :

Here lie I as warm as they.

75

"The general recommendation of Shenstone,” says Dr. Johnson, "is easiness and simplicity." His poems consist of

FROM THE SPANISH.

"BETTER to roam the fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught."
This maxim long I happily pursued,

And fell disease my health then ne'er subdued;
But to be more than well at length I tried,
The doctor came at last, and then I died.

FROM THE FRENCH.

CARELESS and thoughtless all my life,
Stranger to every source of strife,
And deeming each grave sage a fool,
The law of nature was my rule
By which I duly learnt to measure
My portion of desire and pleasure.
'Tis strange that here I lie, you see,
For death must have indulged a whim
At any time t'have thought of me,
Who never once did think of him.

Molière, born 1620, ob. 1673, wrote several exquisite plays, and, whilst performing the part of a dead man in one of them, was taken ill, and died a few hours afterwards. Several of his plays have been adapted to the English stage with success.

elegies, odes, and ballads, humorous sallies and moral pieces His poem of "The Schoolmistress" is his most pleasing performance.

Of the two other eminent dramatic authors of France it may be said that Racine excels Corneille in variety, tenderness, and elegance; but is not equal to him in vigour and genius.

I.

ROSCIUS hic situs est tristi Molierus in urnâ,
Cui genus humanum ludere, ludus erat.
Dum ludit mortem, mors indignata jocantem
Corripit, et nimium fingere, sæva negat.

WITHIN this melancholy tomb confined,
Here lies the matchless ape of human-kind;
Who, while he labour'd with ambitious strife
To mimic death, as he had mimick'd life,
So well, or rather ill, perform'd his part,
That Death, delighted with his wond'rous art,
Snatch'd up the copy, to the grief of France,
And made it an original at once.

2.

CI-DESSOUS gît un grand seigneur,
Qui de son vivant nons apprit,
Qu'un homme peut vivre sans cœur,
Et mourir sans rendre l'esprit.

Countess de Bregy.

A NOBLE lord here buried is,
The lesson of whose life was this-
Without a heart a man may live,
And die without a soul to give.

S.