Then gazed affrighten'd; but she caught a last,
A dying look of love,—and all was past!

She placed a decent stone his grave above,
Neatly engraved—an offering of her love;

For that she wrought, for that forsook her bed,
Awake alike to duty and the dead;

She would have grieved, had friends presumed to spare
The least assistance-'twas her proper care.

Here will she come, and on the grave will sit,
Folding her arms, in long abstracted fit;
But if observer pass, will take her round,
And careless seem, for she would not be found;
Then go again, and thus her hour employ,
While visions please her, and while woes destroy.
Forbear, sweet maid! nor be by fancy led,

To hold mysterious converse with the dead;
For sure at length thy thoughts, thy spirits pain,
In this sad conflict will disturb thy brain;
All have their tasks and trials; thine are hard,
But short the time, and glorious the reward;
Thy patient spirit to thy duties give,
Regard the dead, but to the living live.

NOTES TO LETTER II.

Note 1, page 23, lines 15 and 16.
In three short hours shall thy presuming hand
Th' effect of three slow centuries command ?

If it should be objected, that centuries are not slower than hours, because the speed of time must be uniform, I would answer, that I understand so much, and mean that they are slower in no other sense, than because they are not finished so

soon.

Note 2, page 24, line 2.

Can the small germ upon the substance view.

This kind of vegetation, as it begins upon siliceous stones, is very thin, and frequently not to be distinguished from the surface of the flint. The byssus jolithus of Linnæus (lepraria jolithus of the present system), an adhesive carmine crust on rocks and old buildings, was, even by scientific persons, taken for the substance on which it spread. A great variety of these minute vegetables are to be found in some parts of the coast› where the beach, formed of stones of various kinds, is undisturbed, and exposed to every change of weather; in this situation, the different species of lichen, in their different stages of growth, have an appearance interesting and agreeable even to those who are ignorant of, and indifferent to the cause.

VOL. II.

D

Note 3, page 24, lines 21 and 22.

Each has its motto: some contrived to tell,

In monkish rhyme, the uses of a bell.

The several purposes for which bells are used are expressed in two Latin verses of this kind.

Note 4, page 25, line 18.

But monuments themselves memorials need.

Quandoquidem data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepulchris.

Juvenal. Sat. x. l. 146.

Note 5, page 31, last line.

Regard the dead, but to the living live.

It has been observed to me, that in the first part of the story I have represented this young woman as resigned and attentive to her duties; from which it should appear that the concluding advice is unnecessary; but if the reader will construe the expression" to the living live," into the sense-live entirely for them, attend to duties only which are real, and not those imposed by the imagination, I shall have no need to alter the line which terminates the story.

THE BOROUGH.

LETTER III.

THE VICAR-THE CURATE, &c.

And telling me the sov'reign'st thing on earth

Was parmacity for an inward bruise.

Shakspeare.-Henry IV. Part I. Act 1.

So gentle, yet so brisk, so wond'rous sweet,
So fit to prattle at a lady's feet.

Churchill.

Much are the precious hours of youth mispent
In climbing learning's rugged, steep ascent:
When to the top the bold adventurer's got,
He reigns vain monarch of a barren spot;
While in the vale of ignorance below,
Folly and vice to rank luxuriance grow;
Honours and wealth pour in on every side,
And proud preferment rolls her golden tide.

Churchill.