No. XXIII.

Cinis, et manes, et fabula fies,

PERSIUS.

A name, a shade, alas! thy lot shall be,
And dust and ashes all that's left of thee.

EVER since I was a school-boy, I have been fond of walking in Westminster-abbey, where, when my heart is heated by the violence of some unruly passion, I enjoy a cool composure, and a kind of venerable refreshment. Its dusky cloisters, majestic ailes, quire, organs, royal tombs, and reverend variety of strong, impressive images, have a never-failing power to reduce my mind from transport, when hope, prosperity, or pleasure, have betrayed it into vanity; or to relieve it, when disordered by a weight of anguish or oppression.

"Death and the sun (says a French writer) are two things not to be looked upon with a steady eye."-Though there is something in his observation rather pretty than just, yet so far is certainly true, that we are unqualified to think serenely on our dissolution, while we are surrounded by the noise and hurry of the world,

in its ambitious scenes; or softened into sensual wishes, by the languor of an idle solitude. While we are part of our own prospect, we can never view it justly: but, in such a situation as the abbey, we are placed as it were out of ourselves, and, from this ancient stand of death, look back upon a country which we seem no longer to have any concern in; and which, therefore, we can judge of with the necessary clearness and impartiality.

The mind that is steadfast enough to meditate calmly on death, will be armed to resist the strength and the flattery of human passions: such thoughts, if they make us not better, will at least make us wiser; since that must moderate our wishes, which puts us out of countenance at their levity; and who can reflect without being ashamed, that while every thing in life is accidental, and death the only certainty; we go on to act notwithstanding, as if all things else were infallible, and death but accidental.

I sometimes suffer myself to be shut up for five or six hours among the tombs, where I sit down, without ceremony or apprehension, among the proudest of those princes, who were once too stately to be conversed with, but at a distance, and with fear and reverence. I possess, in common with the spiders (their companions

and most constant servants, who spread network over their trophies), the unenvied privilege of surrounding those last beds of forgotten majesty. Here I bury myself in solemn silence, and imprint my imagination with images which awaken thought, and prepare me for humility: the stained and melancholy light that enters faintly through the painted windows, as if it wore a decent mourning, to become the scene it opens to me, guides me slowly, by the cloistered alleys, dusty tombs, and weeping statues, till I am lost in that still pomp of figured sorrow which on every side incloses me.

From finish'd prayer the flock disperse apace,
And each glad foot forsakes the dreary place:
The hooded prebend plods along before,
And the last verger claps the ringing door.
Then, thoughtful, lingering, curious, and alone,
In the dark temple, when the rest are gone,
No noise invades my ear, no murm'ring breath,
Not one low whisper in the hall of death ;
No trampling sound swims o'er the silent floor,
But the slow clock that counts the sliding hour.

Here, indulging contemplation, I forget my cares and misfortunes, and disencumber myself from the forms and embarrassments of converse. I become the inhabitant of a quiet and unbusy world, where all is serene and peaceful: I am

disturbed by no fears, inflamed by no anger, inspired by no hope, tormented by no jealousy; I can expect without impatience, and be disappointed without affliction. The dust which is scattered round me, and which once was living flesh as I am, chokes the fountains of my pride, and produces in me a mortification that is too strong for all my passions.

I was present very lately, when one of those monumental historians, whose employment it is to draw a profit from reading lectures on these resting-places of our ancient princes, was shewing the tomb of Henry the fifth to a circle of holiday strollers. After having informed the tasteless wonderers, that this was he who conquered France; that his son was crowned in Paris; that he married the French king's daughter; and what else he had been able to collect from the records of this great prince's reign; he pointed to a plain, wooden, worm-eaten coffin, that was placed upon the ground by this tomb's side, and told them that it contained the body of Queen Catharine, the beautiful wife of this triumphant Henry: adding, that for a small additional contribution, he would unlock the coffin, and let them look in upon her corpse, which lay there perfect and undecayed, though she had been dead almost three hundred years.

They had curiosity enough to pay the price demanded, and the proposer made good his promise, unveiling to the sight and touch the reliques of that royal charmer.

I cannot express the indignation and concern which this scene gave me. Her lovely limbs (which once were thought too tender for the wind to blow upon, and which were never seen without joy, reverence, and wonder, by the conqueror of her father's kingdom, and the sovereign of this in which she died) now lay neglected and exposed, denied even earth to cover her, and made a spectacle for the entertainment of a crowd of common wanderers!

Superior as this lady was in beauty, birth, and fortune, what pre-eminence in death have all these given her above the meanest and most unlovely?-After having made her life a changeful course of sorrow and calamity, they left her destitute in death, without the decency of a grave to shelter her! There now she lies, a proof of transitory greatness; to comfort the wretched with this reflection, when they look in upon her exposed remains-that nature has made no difference between a royal and a vulgar body; but that, taking away what was added by fortune, each, from the moment of death, is the other's equal to eternity!