On the First Daughter of Ben Jonson.

Here lies to each her parents ruth,

Mary, the daughter of their youth:

Yet, all heav'ns gifts, being heav'ns due,
It makes the father, less, to rue.

At six months end, she parted hence

With safety of her innocence;

Whose soul heav'ns Queen (whose name she bears)

In comfort of her mother's tears,

Hath plac'd among her virgin train:
Where, while that sever'd doth remain,
This grave partakes the fleshy birth,
Which cover lightly, gentle earth.

On the First Son of Ben Jonson,

Farewel, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy,
Seven years thou were lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate on the just day.

O, could I lose all father, now.

For why

Will man lament the state he should envie
To have so soon scap'd world's, and flesh's rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age?

Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say here doth lie
Ben. Johnson his best piece of poetry.

For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.
P

ON S. P.

A Child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel.

Weep with me all you that read
This little story :

And know, for whom a tear you shed,
Death's self is sorry.

"Twas a child that so did thrive
In grace, and feature,

As Heaven and Nature seem'd to strive Which own'd the creature.

Years he number'd scarce thirteen

When Fates turn'd cruel,

Yet three fill'd Zodiacks had he been
The stage's jewel;

And did act (what now we moan)
Old men so duly,

As, sooth, the Parce thought him one,
He play'd so truly.

So, by error to his fate

They all consented;

But viewing him since (alas, too late)
They have repented;

And have sought (to give new birth)
In bathes to steep him;

But, being so much too good for earth,
Heav'n vows to keep him.

Brighwell, Oxon.

ON STEPHEN RUMBOLD.

Born Feb. 1582,

He liv'd one hundred and five,
Sanguine and strong;

An hundred to five,

You live not so long.

Dy'd March 4, 1687.

Clerkenwell Church-yard.

ON MR. HARRIS, 1774.

Here rests the man who living dar'd be brave, And spurn'd the follies of each vicious slave; Who dar'd to think, to act by virtue's laws; And strove to conquer in religion's cause; He strove-not merely by the turns of art, But steady practice, with sincerest heart; A practice founded on fair reason's rules, Unknown to wayward, unrepenting fools; Such that he was, and how he dar'd excel, In future let Acarian Shepherds tell : His boast, sweet liberty! for when she's gone, Then vice and virtue interweave as one. O guard thy Britons, Heaven to latest hour, O guard thy Britons from despotic power!

On Fop, a Dog belonging to Lady Throckmorton.

Though once a puppy, and though Fop by name,
Here moulders one, whose bones some honour claim;
No sycophant, although of spaniel-race!

And though no hound, a martyr to the chace!
Ye squirrels, rabbits, leverets rejoice!
Your haunts no longer echo to his voice.
This record of his fate exulting view!

He died worn out with vain pursuit of you.

"Yes!" The indignant shade of Fop replies, "And worn with vain pursuit, Man also dies.”

ON ROBERT COXE,

Town-Crier of Northampton, 1773.

Here, silenc'd now by voice of death,

One rests, who ne'er knew loss of breath;

But, when alive, would loudly give it
With freer will than we'd receive it;
Who news of horrid murder bore,
With sound of bell to ev'ry door;
And oft, in honour of the dead,
Such fervent praises sang or said,
Some were (he'd say with little thinking)
Return'd to life*-when they were stinking;
Who loud proclaim'd, to foe and friend,

* Rabbits, turkeys, geese, fresh salmon and cod, and live lobsters and oysters are advertised for sale by the town-criers.

The losses which misfortunes send;
Who told of robberies and theft,

-

And who's of goods by fraud bereft.-
Such were the services of late
One noisy man perform'd the state!
And now another, with his bell,
Attempts to toll the warning knell;
Attempts the praises of the dead,-
O! may ye profit by his trade!
Each time his bell alarms the street,
Remember-life is short and fleet;
Think on the hours, to your sad cost,
Which time hath stolen, and ye have lost;
Reflect how oft ye heedless stray
From honour's path, from virtue's way';
O! let its sound supply your sense.
And think-ye'll soon be summon'd hence!

At the Village of Mousehole, Cornwall.

ON OLD DOLLY PENTREATH.

One of the last persons known to speak the Cornish language; she was buried in Paul's Church Yard, near Mousehole, and lived to the great age of 102. Her Epitaph is both in Cornish and English.

Old Dol Pentreath, one hundred age and two
Both born, and in Paul parish buried, too;
Not in the church 'mongst people great and high,
But in the church-yard doth old Dolly lie!