as disgraceful to the national taste, as
their levity is unsuitable to the place of the dead. I am not aware
whether this epitaph, by the most amiable of poets, Cowper, has been
preserved among his works. It is on the tomb of a Mrs Hamilton:--

"Pause here and think--a monitory rhyme
Demands one moment of thy fleeting time.
Consult Life's silent clock. Thy glowing vein
Seems it to say--'Health here has long to reign?'--
Hast thou the vigour of thy youth? an eye
That beams delight: a heart untaught to sigh?
Yet fear. Youth ofttimes, healthful and at ease,
Anticipates a day it never sees.
And many a tomb, like Hamilton's, aloud
Exclaims--Prepare thee for an early shroud!"

In the course of this year died three remarkable men, Lavater, Gilbert
Wakefield, and Heberden, the famous physician. Perhaps no man of his day
excited more general attention throughout Europe than John Gaspar
Lavater; and this is the more remarkable, when we recollect that he was
but a simple Swiss pastor at Zurich--minister of the church of St Peter.
When about thirty years' old, his mind was first turned to the study of
Physiognomy. He shortly after published some parts of a work on the
subject, in which he broached a new theory; viz. that the countenance
gave representative evidences of the powers and comparative vigour of
the understanding. The subject of Physiognomy had been already treated
of by the German writers; but, as Voltaire observes, the business of
German philosophy is to make philosophy inaccessible; and their
treatises had sunk into oblivion. Yet the science itself, if science it
is to be called, is so natural, so universally, however involuntarily,
practised, and frequently so useful in its practice, that its revival
became instantly popular:--a large part of its popularity, however,
being due to the novelty of Lavater's system, the animation of his
language, and that enthusiastic confidence in his discovery, which is
always amongst the most powerful means of convincing the majority of
mankind. Something also is due to the happy idea of illustrating his
conceptions by a great number of portraits, which added amusement to the
general interest of the volumes. Passion possesses great influence in
the world, and Physiognomy became the fashion. His books spread through
every part of the Continent, and nothing can be more striking than the
ardour with which they were received. If Switzerland is proud of his
popularit