The skin which but yesterday fools could adore The trappings which dizen the proud? Alas! they are all laid aside : And here's neither dress nor adornment allowed, And here in the grave are all metals forbid Ah! here is a plentiful board, But the guests are all mute as their pitiful cheer, Shall we build to Affection and Love? Or fled with the spirit above. Friends, brothers, and sisters are laid side by side, Unto Sorrow? The dead cannot grieve. Not a sob, not a sigh meets mine ear, Which compassion itself could relieve! Ah, sweetly they slumber, nor hope, love, nor fear ; Ab, no! for his empire is known, And here there are trophies enow. Beneath the cold dead, and around the dark stone, The first tabernacle to HOPE we will build, And look for the sleepers around us to rise! The second to FAITH, which insures it fulfilled; Who bequeathed us them both when he rose to the skies'. *17. 1793.-THE FRENCH INVADED HOLLAND. In 'Butler's Remains,' there is a very humorous 1 See Carlisle's Grammar Schools, vol. ii, p. 880, and the Literary Gazette, Jan. 23, 1819, p. 57, for a specimen of the first production of this interesting young bard. D piece of exaggeration respecting Holland, which he describes as A country that draws fifty foot of water, That feed, like cannibals, on other fishes, Marvell, in his Political Poems, thus opens his Glad then, as miners who have found the ore, He goes on in a strain of exquisite hyperbole :- Thorough the centre their new-catched miles; Where barking waves still bait the forced ground; To catch the waves, than those to scale the sky. Yet still his claim the injured ocean laid, And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples played; To shew them what's their Mare Liberum ; 1 A Free Ocean. And oft the Tritons, and the Sea-nymphs, saw *17.-FERALIA. A festival, celebrated by the Romans, in honour of the dead. It continued for eleven days, during which time presents were carried to the graves of the deceased, marriages were forbidden, and the temples of the gods were shut. It was universally believed that the manes of their departed friends came and hovered over their graves, and feasted upon the provisions that the hand of piety and affection had procured for them. Their punishments in the infernal regions were also suspended, and during that time they enjoyed rest and liberty. Ovid thus describes the ceremonies in his Fasti: Upon a tile a slender offering's made, On which some scattered corn and salt is laid; The Indicator, No. VII, vol. i, p. 51. What is here called consecrated ground, in the original is Mediâ via; because antiently graves were made, and monuments to the me mory of the dead were erected, by the side of the highways; which was a good method of putting the living, as they passed by, in remembrance of their mortality; and for that reason also, Siste Viator, was often the beginning of what was cut upon the tomb-stones. Let them that will, add better things than these, Let all your voices join in prayer and praise. 18.-SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY. The institution of this and the two following Sundays cannot be traced higher than the beginning of the sixth or the close of the fifth century. When the words Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima (seventieth, sixtieth, and fiftieth), were first applied to denote these three Sundays, the season of Lent had generally been extended to a fast of six weeks, that is, thirty-six days, not reckoning the Sundays, which were always celebrated as festivals. At this time also, the Sunday which we call the first Sunday in Lent, was styled simply Quadragesima, or the fortieth, meaning, no doubt, the fortieth day before Easter. Quadragesima was also the name given to the season of Lent, and denoted the quadragesimal or forty days' fast. When the three weeks before Quadragesima ceased to be considered as weeks after the Theophany (or Epiphany), and were appointed to be observed as a time of preparation for Lent, it was perfectly conformable to the ordinary mode of computation to reckon backwards, and, for the sake of even and round numbers, to count by decades.'-(Shepherd.) *21. TACITA, MUTA, or LALA, The goddess who presided over silence, among the Romans, had this particular day appointed for her festival; and, if the various enchantments described by Ovid would deliver us from slanderous tongues,' 'malicious lies,' and the 'tattle baskets" of our day, we would be among the first to vote for the revival of this singular feast. The ceremonies are thus noted in the Fasti : Lara, afterwards Lala, from the Greek verb λaλsı, to talk much, to babble. To Tacita the silent rites belong, And yet the chatt'rer cannot hold her tongue; With tipsy steps, she tottering reels away. *21. 1595. REV. R. SOUTHWELL EXECUTED. Poor Southwell (called the English Jesuit) was cast on a stormy epoch, when neither high birth, nor merit, nor innocence, sufficed to save the victims of political and religious contentions. He was of a good family in Norfolk, educated at Douay, and at sixteen entered into the society of Jesuits at Rome. In 1584 he came as a missionary into England, and was domestic chaplain to Anne Countess of Arundel, in which situation he remained till 1592; when, in consequence of some of the violent re-actions of that time, he was apprehended at Uxenden, in Middlesex, and sent a prisoner to the Tower. Here he was confined three years, during which he was cruelly racked ten times, with a view to extort from him a disclosure of certain supposed conspiracies against the government. At the end of this period, he sent an epistle to Cecil, the Lord Treasurer, humbly entreating his lordship, that he might either be brought upon his trial, to answer for himself, or, at least, that his friends might have leave to come and see him. The Treasurer answered, that if he was in such haste to be hanged, he should quickly have |