My cheeks have often been bedewed 3. My thoughts are with the Dead; with them And from their lessons seek and find 4. My hopes are with the Dead; anon Yet leaving here a name, I trust, That will not perish in the dust. KESWICK, 1818. XIX. IMITATED FROM THE PERSIAN. LORD! who art merciful as well as just, Father Almighty, who hast made me man, Four things which are not in thy treasury, My sins, and my contrition. LOWTHER CASTLE, 1828. THE RETROSPECT. CORSTON is a small village about three miles from Bath, a little to the left of the Bristol Road. The manor was parted with by the monks of Bath, about the reign of Henry I., to Sir Roger de St. Lo, in exchange. It continued in his family till the reign of Edward II., when it passed to the family of Inge, who are said to have been domestics to the St. Los for several generations. In process of time, it came to the Harringtons, and was by them sold to Joseph Langton, whose daughter and heiress brought it in marriage to William Gore Langton, Esq. The church, which, in 1292, was valued at 7 marks, 9s. 4d., was appropriated to the prior and convent of Bath, and a vicarage ordained here by Bishop John de Drokensford, Nov. 1, 1321, decreeing that the vicar and his successors in perpetuum should have a hall, with chambers, kitchen, and bakehouse, with a third part of the garden and curtilage, aud a pigeonhouse, formerly belonging to the parsonage; that he should have one acre of arable land, consisting of three parcels, late part of the demesne of the said parsonage, together with common pasturage for his swine in such places as the rector of the said church used that privilege; that he should receive from the prior and convent of Bath one quarter of bread-corn yearly, and have all the altarage, and all small tithes of beans and other blade growing in the cottage enclosures and cultivated curtilages throughout the parish; that the religious aforesaid and their successors, as rectors of the said church, should have all the arable land, with a park belonging to the land (the acre above mentioned only excepted), and receive all great tithes, as well of corn as of hay; the said religious to sustain all burdens, ordinary and extraordinary, incumbent on the church, as rectors thereof. The Prior of Bath had a yearly pension out of the vicarage of 4s. · Collinson's Hist. of Somersetshire. vol. iii. pp. 341–347. ON as I journey through the vale of years, By hopes enlivened, or depressed by fears, Allow me, Memory, in thy treasured store To view the days that will return no more. And yes! before thine intellectual ray The clouds of mental darkness melt away! As when, at earliest day's awakening dawn, The hovering mists obscure the dewy lawn, O'er all the landscape spread their influence chill, Hang o'er the vale and wood, and hide the hill; Anon, slow rising, comes the orb of day; Slow fade the shadowy mists, and roll away; The prospect opens on the traveller's sight, And hills and vales and woods reflect the living light. O thou, the mistress of my future days! Corston, twelve years in various fortunes fled Yet still will Memory's busy eye retrace Large was the house, though fallen, in course of fate, From its old grandeur and manorial state. Lord of the manor, here the jovial squire Once called his tenants round the crackling fire; Here, while the glow of joy suffused his face, He told his ancient exploits in the chase, And, proud his rival sportsmen to surpass, He lit again the pipe, and filled again the glass. But now no more was heard at early morn The squire no more obeyed the morning call, |