The eulogy pronounced by Mr. Melvill was a very pathetic one.  He wiped his own eyes often, and made every body present still oftener wipe theirs.

The auditors were most particularly affected, when he told them, that the solemn text was her own choice.

He enumerated her fine qualities, naming with honour their late worthy pastor for his authority.

Every enumerated excellence was witnessed to in different parts of the church in respectful whispers by different persons, as of their own knowledge, as I have been since informed.

When he pointed to the pew where (doing credit to religion by her example) she used to sit or kneel, the whole auditory, as one person, turned to the pew with the most respectful solemnity, as if she had been herself there.

When the gentleman attributed condescension and mingled dignity to her, a buzzing approbation was given to the attribute throughout the church; and a poor, neat woman under my pew added, ’That she was indeed all graciousness, and would speak to any body.’

Many eyes ran over when he mentioned her charities, her well-judged charities.  And her reward was decreed from every mouth with sighs and sobs from some, and these words from others, ’The poor will dearly miss her.’

The cheerful giver whom God is said to love, was allowed to be her:  and a young lady, I am told, said, It was Miss Clarissa Harlowe’s care to find out the unhappy, upon a sudden distress, before the sighing heart was overwhelmed by it.

She had a set of poor people, chosen for their remarkable honesty and ineffectual industry.  These voluntarily paid their last attendance on their benefactress; and mingling in the church as they could crowd near the aisle where the corpse was on stands, it was the less wonder that her praises from the preacher met with such general and such grateful whispers of approbation.

Some, it seems there were, who, knowing her unhappy story, remarked upon the dejected looks of the brother, and the drowned eyes of the sister!  ’O what would they now give, they’d warrant, had they not been so hard-hearted!’—­Others pursued, as I may say, the severe father and unhappy mother into their chambers at home—­’They answered for their relenting, now that it was too late!—­What must be their grief!—­No wonder they could not be present!’

Several expressed their astonishment, as people do every hour, ’that a man could live whom such perfections could not engage to be just to her;’ —­to be humane I may say.  And who, her rank and fortune considered, could be so disregardful of his own interest, had he had no other motive to be just!—­

The good divine, led by his text, just touched upon the unhappy step that was the cause of her untimely fate.  He attributed it to the state of things below, in which there could not be absolute perfection.  He very politely touched upon the noble disdain she showed (though earnestly solicited by a whole splendid family) to join interests with a man whom she found unworthy of her esteem and confidence:  and who courted her with the utmost earnestness to accept of him.