"When our friends we lose,
Our alter'd feelings alter too our views;
What in their tempers, teazed or distress'd,
Is with our anger, and the dead at rest;
And must we grieve, no longer trial made,
For that impatience which we then display'd?
Now to their love and worth of every kind,
A soft compunction turns the afflicted mind;
Virtues neglected then, adored become,
And graces slighted, blossom on the tomb."

CRABBE.


"It was the early wish of Pope," says Dr. Knox, "that when he died, not
a stone might tell where he lay. It is a wish that will commonly be
granted with reluctance. The affection of those whom we leave behind us
is at a loss for methods to display its wonted solicitude, and seeks
consolation under sorrow, in doing honour to all that remains. It is
natural that filial piety, parental tenderness, and conjugal love,
should mark, with some fond memorial, the clay-cold spot where the form,
still fostered in the bosom, moulders away. And did affection go no
farther, who could censure? But, in recording the virtues of the
departed, either zeal or vanity leads to an excess perfectly ludicrous.
A marble monument, with an inscription palpably false and ridiculously
pompous, is far more offensive to true taste, than the wooden memorial
of the rustic, sculptured with painted bones, and decked out with
death's head in all the colours of the rainbow. There is an elegance and