ased or delighted. The affections are their own
justification. The Light of Love in our Hearts is a satisfactory
evidence that there is a body of worth in the minds of our friends or
kindred, whence that Light has proceeded. We shrink from the thought
of placing their merits and defects to be weighed against each other
in the nice balance of pure intellect; nor do we find much temptation
to detect the shades by which a good quality or virtue is
discriminated in them from an excellence known by the same general
name as it exists in the mind of another; and, least of all, do we
incline to these refinements when under the pressure of Sorrow,
Admiration, or Regret, or when actuated by any of those feelings which
incite men to prolong the memory of their Friends and Kindred, by
records placed in the bosom of the all-uniting and equalizing
Receptacle of the Dead.

The first requisite, then, in an Epitaph is, that it should speak, in
a tone which shall sink into the heart, the general language of
humanity as connected with the subject of Death--the source from which
an Epitaph proceeds; of death and of life. To be born and to die are
the two points in which all men feel themselves to be in absolute
coincidence. This general language may be uttered so strikingly as to
entitle an Epitaph to high praise; yet it cannot lay claim to the
highest unless other excellencies be superadded. Passing through all
intermediate steps, we will attempt to determine at once what these
excellencies are, and wherein consists the perfection of this species
of composition. It will be found to lie in a due proportion of the
common or universal feeling of humanity to sensations excited by a
distinct and clear conception, conveyed to the Reader's mind, of the
Individual, whose death is deplored and whose memory is to be
preserved; at least of his character as, after Death, it appeared to
those who loved him and lament his loss. The general sympathy ought to
be quickened, provoked, and diversified, by particular thoughts,
actions, images,--circumstances of age, occupation, manner of life,
prosperity which the Deceased had known, or adversity to which he had
been subject; and these ought to be bound together and solemnized into
one harmony by the general sympathy. The two powers should temper,
restrain, and exalt each other. The Reader ought to know who and what
the Man was whom he is called to think upon with interest. A distinct
conception should be g