Let us return to an instance of common life.  I quote it with reluctance, not so much for its absurdity as that the expression in one place will strike at first sight as little less than impious; and it is indeed, though unintentionally so, most irreverent.  But I know no other example that will so forcibly illustrate the important truth I wish to establish.  The following epitaph is to be found in a church-yard in Westmoreland; which the present Writer has reason to think of with interest as it contains the remains of some of his ancestors and kindred.  The date is 1678.

Under this Stone, Reader, inter’d doth lye,
Beauty and Virtue’s true epitomy. 
At her appearance the noone-son
Blush’d and shrunk in ’cause quite outdon. 
In her concentered did all graces dwell: 
God pluck’d my rose that He might take a smel. 
I’ll say no more:  but weeping wish I may
Soone with thy dear chaste ashes com to lay. 
Sic efflevit Maritus.

Can anything go beyond this in extravagance? yet, if the fundamental thoughts be translated into a natural style, they will be found reasonable and affecting—­’The woman who lies here interred, was in my eyes a perfect image of beauty and virtue; she was to me a brighter object than the sun in heaven:  God took her, who was my delight, from this earth to bring her nearer to Himself.  Nothing further is worthy to be said than that weeping I wish soon to lie by thy dear chaste ashes.  Thus did the husband pour out his tears.’

These verses are preceded by a brief account of the lady, in Latin prose, in which the little that is said is the uncorrupted language of affection.  But, without this introductory communication I should myself have had no doubt, after recovering from the first shock of surprize and disapprobation, that this man, notwithstanding his extravagant expressions, was a sincere mourner; and that his heart, during the very act of composition, was moved.  These fantastic images, though they stain the writing, stained not her soul,—­they did not even touch it; but hung like globules of rain suspended above a green leaf, along which they may roll and leave no trace that they have passed over it.  This simple-hearted man must have been betrayed by a common notion that what was natural in prose would be out of place in verse;—­that it is not the Muse which puts on the garb but the garb which makes the Muse.  And having adopted this notion at a time when vicious writings of this kind accorded with the public taste, it is probable that, in the excess of his modesty, the blankness of his inexperience, and the intensity of his affection, he thought that the further he wandered from Nature in his language the more would he honour his departed consort, who now appeared to him to have surpassed humanity in the excellence of her endowments.  The quality of his fault and its very excess are both in favour of this conclusion.

Let us contrast this epitaph with one taken from a celebrated Writer of the last century.