THE ABBOT OF TEWKESBURY.

(_For the Mirror._)


"After life's fitful fever be sleeps well."
_Shakspeare_.

(In opening the tomb of the founder of the Abbey at Tewkesbury, the body
of the Abbot was found clothed in full canonicals. The crosier was as
perfect as when, perhaps, first put in the coffin, while the body showed
scarcely any symptom of decay, though it had been entombed considerably
above six hundred years. On exposure to the air, the boots alone of the
Abbot were seen to sink, when the tomb was ordered to be sealed up, and
his holiness again committed in his darkness. On the above circumstance
this sketch is founded.)

Is this to be dead? Am I not clad in all pontifical splendour? Do I not
feel the crosier on my breast? The holy brethren of the Abbey surround
me. That which distinguished the Abbot when alive, is even here in
collected magnificence. I feel the priestly consequence of the Abbot. Is
this then the Chamber of the Dead? The pious monks are weeping. The
tears which have flowed before the marble shrine are recalled to weep
for a departed brother. The incense is full fragrant. I enjoy the
perception of its odour. It dilates in my stiffened nostrils, but it
supplies me not the breath of life. I hear the loud Hosanna chanted for
a soul which dies in the Lord. I will repeat the strain. No. My voice
refuses to fall back upon the ear. Where is my heart that it beats not