The LAST of the FAMILY.

JAMES.

What Gregory! you are come I see to join us

On this sad business.

GREGORY.

Aye, James, I am come,

But with a heavy heart, God knows it, man!
Where shall we meet the corpse?

JAMES.

Some hour from hence;

By noon, and near about the elms, I take it.
This is not as it should be, Gregory,

Old men to follow young ones to the grave!
This morning when I heard the bell strike out,
I thought that I had never heard it toll
So dismally before.

GREGORY.

Well, well! my friend,

'Tis what we all must come to, soon or late.

But when a young man dies, in the prime of life, One born so well, who might have blest us all Many long years! . .

JAMES.

And then the family
Extinguish'd in him, and the good old name
Only to be remember'd on a tomb-stone!
A name that has gone down from sire to son
So many generations!-many a time

Poor Master Edward, who is now a corpse,
When but a child, would come to me and lead me
To the great family tree, and beg of me
To tell him stories of his ancestors,

Of Eustace, he that went to the Holy Land
With Richard Lion-heart, and that Sir Henry
Who fought at Crecy in King Edward's wars ;
And then his little eyes would kindle so

To hear of their brave deeds! I used to think
The bravest of them all would not out-do

My darling boy.

GREGORY.

This comes of your great schools

And college breeding.

Plague upon his guardians

That would have made him wiser than his fathers!

JAMES.

If his poor father, Gregory! had but lived,
Things would not have been so. He, poor good man,

Had little of book learning, but there lived not

A kinder, nobler-hearted gentleman,

One better to his tenants. When he died
There was not a dry eye for miles around.
Gregory, I thought that I could never know
A sadder day than that: but what was that,
Compared with this day's sorrow?

GREGORY.

I remember

Eight months ago when the young Squire began
To alter the old mansion, they destroy'd

The martins nests, that had stood undisturb'd
Under that roof,.. aye! long before my memory.
I shook my head at seeing it, and thought

No good could follow.

JAMES.

Poor young man! I loved him

Like my own child. I loved the family!

Come Candlemas, and I have been their servant

For five and forty years.

I lived with them

When his good father brought my Lady home,
And when the young Squire was born, it did me good
To hear the bells so merrily announce

An heir. This is indeed a heavy blow...
I feel it Gregory, heavier than the weight
Of threescore years. He was a noble lad,
I loved him dearly.

GREGORY.

Every body loved him,
Such a fine, generous, open-hearted Youth!
When he came home from school at holydays,
How I rejoiced to see him! he was sure

To come and ask of me what birds there were
About my fields; and when I found a covey,
There's not a testy Squire preserves his game
More charily, than I have kept them safe
For Master Edward. And he look'd so well
Upon a fine sharp morning after them,

His brown hair frosted, and his cheek so flush'd
With such a wholesome ruddiness,, . ah James
But he was sadly changed when he came down
To keep his birth-day.

JAMES.

Chang'd! why Gregory,

'Twas like a palsy to me, when he stepp'd