mebody's "infant son
aged fifteen months," for each the squat obelisk, the defaced classic
temple, the cellaret of chunam, or the candlestick of brickwork--the
heavy slab, the rust-eaten railings, the whopper-jawed cherubs, and the
apoplectic angels. Men were rich in those days and could afford to put a
hundred cubic feet of masonry into the grave of even so humble a person
as "Jno. Clements, Captain of the Country Service, 1820." When the
"dearly beloved" had held rank answering to that of Commissioner, the
efforts are still more sumptuous and the verse.... Well, the following
speaks for itself:--

"Soft on thy tomb shall fond Remembrance shed
The warm yet unavailing tear,
And purple flowers that deck the honoured dead
Shall strew the loved and honoured bier."

Failure to comply with the contract does not, let us hope, entail
forfeiture of the earnest-money; or the honoured dead might be grieved.
The slab is out of his tomb, and leans foolishly against it; the
railings are rotted, and there are no more lasting ornaments than
blisters and stains, which are the work of the weather, and not the
result of the "warm yet unavailing tear."

Let us go about and moralise cheaply on the tombstones, trailing the
robe of pious reflection up and down the pathways of the grave. Here is
a big and stately tomb sacred to "Lucia," who died in 1776 A.D., aged
23. Here also be lichened verses which an irreverent thumb can bring to
light. Thus they wrote, when their hearts were heavy in them, one
hundred and sixteen years ago:--

"What needs the emblem, what the plaintive strain,
What all the arts that sculpture e'er expressed,
To tell the treasure that these walls contain?
Let those declare it most who knew her best.

"The tender pity she would oft display
Shall be with interest at her shrine returned,
Connubial love, connubial tears repay,
And Lucia loved shall still be Lucia mourned.

"Though closed the lips, though stopped the tuneful breath,
The silent, clay-cold monitress shall teach--
In all the alarming eloquence of death
With double pathos to the heart shall preach.

"Shall teach the virtuous maid, the faithful wife,
If young and fair, that young and fair was she,
Then close the useful lesson of her life,
And tell them what she is, they soon must be."

That goes well, even after all these years, does it not? and seems t