Such was the maid, that in the morn of youth,
    In virgin innocence, in Nature’s pride,
    Blest with each art, that owes its charm to truth,
    Sunk in her Father’s fond embrace, and died. 
    He weeps:  O venerate the holy tear! 
    Faith lends her aid to ease Affliction’s load;
    The parent mourns his child upon the bier,
    The Christian yields an angel to his God.

The following is a translation from the Latin, communicated to a Lady in her childhood and by her preserved in memory.  I regret that I have not seen the original.

She is gone—­my beloved daughter Eliza is gone,
Fair, cheerful, benign, my child is gone. 
Thee long to be regretted a Father mourns,
Regretted—­but thanks to the most perfect God! not lost. 
For a happier age approaches
When again, my child, I shall behold
And live with thee for ever.

Matthew Dobson to his dear, engaging, happy Eliza
Who in the 18th year of her age
Passed peaceably into heaven.

The former of these epitaphs is very far from being the worst of its kind, and on that account I have placed the two in contrast.  Unquestionably, as the Father in the latter speaks in his own person, the situation is much more pathetic; but, making due allowance for this advantage, who does not here feel a superior truth and sanctity, which is not dependent upon this circumstance but merely the result of the expression and the connection of the thoughts?  I am not so fortunate as to have any knowledge of the Author of this affecting composition, but I much fear if he had called in the assistance of English verse the better to convey his thoughts, such sacrifices would, from various influences, have been made even by him, that, though he might have excited admiration in thousands, he would have truly moved no one.  The latter part of the following by Gray is almost the only instance among the metrical epitaphs in our language of the last century, which I remember, of affecting thoughts rising naturally and keeping themselves pure from vicious diction; and therefore retaining their appropriate power over the mind.

Epitaph on Mrs. Clark.  Lo! where the silent marble weeps, A friend, a wife, a mother, sleeps; A heart, within whose sacred cell The peaceful virtues lov’d to dwell.  Affection warm, and love sincere, And soft humanity were there.  In agony, in death resigned, She felt the wound she left behind.  Her infant image, here below, Sits smiling on a father’s woe; Whom what awaits, while yet he strays Along the lonely vale of days?  A pang to secret sorrow dear; A sigh, an unavailing tear, Till time shall every grief remove, With life, with meaning, and with love.

I have been speaking of faults which are aggravated by temptations thrown in the way of modern Writers when they compose in metre.  The first six lines of this epitaph are vague and languid, more so than