burg: numerous tombs, of a respectable and, indeed,
venerable appearance, contribute to invest the spot with quite an
Old-country character; and, viewed from the high stone wall which
surrounds it, the setting sun is glorious.

To this place my first visit was one of mere chance, but each evening
after saw me at the same calm hour taking my walk amongst the tombs. I
discovered that by far the greatest number of these decent dwellings of
the dead were inscribed to Europeans, chiefly from Ireland and Scotland:
very few were dated past the middle age of life, the majority were
indeed young men,--enterprising adventurers, who had wandered hither to
seek fortune, and had found a grave, the consummation of all wants and
desires.

Upon many of these grave-stones were displayed evidences of the
lingering pride of gentle birth; recollections which, suppressed, or
perhaps forgotten in the land of equality during life, seemed to have
survived the grave, stronger than death. Here were set forth in goodly
cutting the coat armour, crest, and motto of an old Scots or Irish
house, from which the junior branches had probably received no other
inheritance save this claim to _gentillesse_, with liberty to bear it to
some distant soil.

How favoured was the French gentleman of whom we read, who, resigning
his sword, sailed in search of gain, and was permitted to return and
reclaim it before time had rusted its bright blade! How many young
hearts, that, quitting home, have beat high with the prospect of an
equally happy return, have been doomed to waste and wither in all the
misery of hope deferred, which maketh the heart sick indeed, until care
and climate closed the protracted weary struggle, and the fortune-seeker
was laid to moulder in some stranger grave.

I trust that, amidst the changes each day brings forth here, this
ruined church will be left unprofaned, and that the tenants who sleep
within its little inclosure may be left undisturbed. And I would further
counsel any gentle traveller who rests for a sunset in Petersburg, to
walk to this church, and contemplate its going-down from off the lofty
stile leading over the western wall of the grave-yard: and when he shall
behold the forest vale below changed--as I have more than once beheld
it--into a lake of living gold, and over this shall watch the shadows of
evening steal till the last bright fringe is withdrawn, and the brown
forest again is seen to cover all the land--when, I