We have been dwelling upon images of peace in the moral world, that have brought us again to the quiet enclosure of consecrated ground, in which this venerable pair lie interred.  The sounding brook, that rolls close by the churchyard, without disturbing feeling or meditation, is now unfortunately laid bare; but not long ago it participated, with the chapel, the shade of some stately ash-trees, which will not spring again.  While the spectator from this spot is looking round upon the girdle of stony mountains that encompasses the vale,—­masses of rock, out of which monuments for all men that ever existed might have been hewn—­it would surprise him to be told, as with truth he might be, that the plain blue slab dedicated to the memory of this aged pair is a production of a quarry in North Wales.  It was sent as a mark of respect by one of their descendants from the vale of Festiniog, a region almost as beautiful as that in which it now lies!

Upon the Seathwaite Brook, at a small distance from the parsonage, has been erected a mill for spinning yarn; it is a mean and disagreeable object, though not unimportant to the spectator, as calling to mind the momentous changes wrought by such inventions in the frame of society—­changes which have proved especially unfavourable to these mountain solitudes.  So much had been effected by those new powers, before the subject of the preceding biographical sketch closed his life, that their operation could not escape his notice, and doubtless excited touching reflections upon the comparatively insignificant results of his own manual industry.  But Robert Walker was not a man of times and circumstances; had he lived at a later period, the principle of duty would have produced application as unremitting; the same energy of character would have been displayed, though in many instances with widely different effects.

With pleasure I annex, as illustrative and confirmatory of the above account, extracts from a paper in the Christian Remembrancer, October, 1819:  it bears an assumed signature, but is known to be the work of the Rev. Bobert Bamford, vicar of Bishopton, in the county of Durham; a great-grandson of Mr. Walker, whose worth it commemorates, by a record not the less valuable for being written in very early youth.

’His house was a nursery of virtue.  All the inmates were industrious, and cleanly, and happy.  Sobriety, neatness, quietness, characterised the whole family.  No railings, no idleness, no indulgence of passion, were permitted.  Every child, ever young, had its appointed engagements; every hand was busy.  Knitting, spinning, reading, writing, mending clothes, making shoes, were by the different children constantly performing.  The father himself sitting amongst them, and guiding their thoughts, was engaged in the same occupations....