aid to ease Affliction's load;
The parent mourns his child upon the bier,
The Christian yields an angel to his God.

The following is a translation from the Latin, communicated to a Lady in
her childhood and by her preserved in memory. I regret that I have not
seen the original.

She is gone--my beloved daughter Eliza is gone,
Fair, cheerful, benign, my child is gone.
Thee long to be regretted a Father mourns,
Regretted--but thanks to the most perfect God! not lost.
For a happier age approaches
When again, my child, I shall behold
And live with thee for ever.

Matthew Dobson to his dear, engaging, happy Eliza
Who in the 18th year of her age
Passed peaceably into heaven.

The former of these epitaphs is very far from being the worst of its
kind, and on that account I have placed the two in contrast.
Unquestionably, as the Father in the latter speaks in his own person,
the situation is much more pathetic; but, making due allowance for this
advantage, who does not here feel a superior truth and sanctity, which
is not dependent upon this circumstance but merely the result of the
expression and the connection of the thoughts? I am not so fortunate as
to have any knowledge of the Author of this affecting composition, but I
much fear if he had called in the assistance of English verse the better
to convey his thoughts, such sacrifices would, from various influences,
have been made _even by him_, that, though he might have excited
admiration in thousands, he would have truly moved no one. The latter
part of the following by Gray is almost the only instance among the
metrical epitaphs in our language of the last century, which I remember,
of affecting thoughts rising naturally and keeping themselves pure from
vicious diction; and therefore retaining their appropriate power over
the mind.

_Epitaph on Mrs. Clark_.
Lo! where the silent marble weeps,
A friend, a wife, a mother, sleeps;
A heart, within whose sacred cell
The peaceful virtues lov'd to dwell.
Affection warm, and love sincere,
And soft humanity were there.
In agony, in death resigned,
She felt the wound she left behind.
Her infant image, here below,
Sits smiling on a father's woe;
Whom what awaits, while yet he strays
Along the lonely vale of days?
A pang to secret sorrow dear;
A sigh, an unavailing tear,