son of the Church to consider what the however, she must again be placed in consequences must sooner or later be, such a situation as to enforce the reif this state of things go on. The spect of all thinking persons. She Church of England was never, perhaps, must be delivered from the thraldoin in greater danger than she is at pre- into which she is at present cast; nor sent. Harassed on all sides by increa- can any more effectual means be desing sects of Protestant Dissenters, and vised for obtaining so desirable an end, openly menaced with ruin by the Ro- than by vesting her once more with man Catholics, it is high time that the power of legislating in spiritual afsomething like unanimity and zeal for fairs, for herself. In plain language, the common cause should prevail RESTORE THE CONVOCATION. among her members. To create this,

CHAPTERS ON CHURCHYARDS.

CHAP. VI.

Not far from the town of —, in burn-that we should dine early and

-shire, where I passed some weeks set out early, to enjoy a fine long sumin the early part of the present sum- mer evening in rambling about there mer, is the pleasant village of Halli- with our books and pencils—that we burn, much resorted to by persons should go in a car, and that we should visiting the county, sojourners in the go that very evening. Don't you readjacent town-health-hunters, view- member all this, dear friends of mine? hunters, antiquity-hunters, felicity- -and how quickly we dispatched our hunters, --Time-killers ; in short, to dinner, and how we packed up the whom anything serves for a lion, and pencils and sketch-books ? --and how as a point in view for an hour's excur- James was sent off for a car, of which sion. But there are really things description of vehicle, one of us averred worth sceing in and about that same there were hundreds to be hired at village of Halliburn, as those friends every corner-and how James was can bear witness—those dear fellow- gone a mortal time—and how we callview-hunters, in whose company I ed him all sorts of names—“ loiterexplored it. They will remember, ing,” and “ stupid,” and “

blind," how, after sundry and various con- and what not--and how he came back sultations, as to when we should go, at last, looking as innocent as a dove, and how we should go, and at what and puffing like a grampus--and how time, and for how long, and after con- it turned out that there were but two sulting the Guide-book, and recalling cars in the whole place, and that by all we had ever heard reported of this superhuman exertions he had at last or that place, by such or such a person ; secured one of them-and how we flew and after all talking together for an down stairs and found it at the door hour, and each suggesting a different and how it was a very odd-looking veplan, and one premising on the best hicle! mounted up like a tub upon authority, that such a road was in an stilts—and how it cocked up so be impassable state, and a second rejoin- hind, we could hardly scramble ining, from still better authority, that it and how, when we were in, we looked was as smooth as a gravel walk-and at the horse, and did not like him, and one prophesying it would rain, and then at one another, and did not like the rest staking their lives that it would each other's looks—and how we went not rain--and some proposing to walk, off at last, bang ! with such a jerk, as and others to ride--and one voting jerked us altogether in a bunch, with for a car that would hold all, and an- our eight hands up in the middle, like other for a brace of donkey-carts--the four pigeons in a pie—and how we

a matter in debate, at last, resolved it- tore down the street like fury, and self into something of a settled plan, whisked round the corner like a whirlour clashing votes subsiding like a wind-and how the beast of a horse parcel of little frothy waves into one pranced, and snorted like a griffingreat billow; and it was definitively and how one of us vowed he was a agreed, that we should go to Halli- griffin, and no mortal horse--and how

a

a

en

another of us was partly of the same resque (quite Salvatorish) in the tout opinion--and how we all hated the ensemble ! the whole façe had underirregularity of his proceedings, and the gone a facequake! and sparks of the jolting, and swinging, and bumping of volcanic flame were yet visible in the the tub and how at last we all at- one little ferret eye, that gleamed in tacked the driver, and insisted on get his forehead like a live coal, as he ran ting out-and how we all blest our on beside us, now vehemently exciting stars on once more touching terra fir- his donkey to super-donkeyish exerma-and how we found out that we tions, now declaiming to us, with all had narrowly escaped the fate of Ma- the fervour of a dilletante guide, on zeppa, having actually been tied on to views, antiquities, curiosities, fossils, the tail of a wild horse, whose pro- minerals, snail-shells, and Roman prietor had allotted to us the honour pavements. He was a jewel of a guide! of breaking his spirit, or our own t6 Take him for all in all, we shall not necks.

look upon his like again !” Out of evil often good proceedeth- Well ! you remember we alighted our proud spirits were humbled. We (unlighted, as an old lady of my achad enough of prancing steeds, and quaintance used to say,) at the enjumping chariots--we had tasted of trance of the village, and there again exaltation, and were satisfied-we had debate ensued, as to where we should been set up aloft, and were glad to first shape our course. There was the come down again--so with meek minds, church—a fine old church! to be and amiable condescension, we seen, and perhaps sketched. There trusted ourselves, deux à deux, to a was a famous grotto, of which the couple of donkey carts, and off we Guide-book told wonders; and, lastly, were once more !-Ours, you know, there was, within a pretty walk of the Lilias ! leading the way. And, don't church, an old, old house, the oldest you remember-can you ever forget in the county, a manor-house, the that blear-eyed goblin, that attended property of one of the most ancient us as a running footman? shuffling families in the kingdom, the family of along by the side of his donkey, and the De la Veres. That venerable manregaling us, chémin faisant, with his sion was, I believe, the greatest atamiable conversation. One of his traction to us all ; but, like dainty eyes, you know—the right-with its children, we set it aside for bonne little rusty tuft of eye-brow, had wan- bouche, and decided to begin with the dered half-way up into his forehead; grotto. Strange misgivings erept over the other (leaving a long, black, shag- us, when we were directed through gy eye-brow in its natural place) had the village street, to the door of a dropped down hill (languishingly half mean-looking house, and told that was closed) towards the left corner of his the entrance to “ the cool cavern! the mouth, which lovingly twitched up- mysterious grot!”—and when, instead wards to meet it half-way; and his of a Nymph, a wood or water-nymph, · nose was puckered down all on one an Oread, a Dryad, or a Hama-dryad, side into the cheek, by a great red there came forth to greet, and introand purple seam; and he was all over duce us to the romantic solitude, an seamed and speckled with black, red, old, frightful, painted hag, with her and purple, for the poor wretch had elf-locks bristling out in papers like evidently been blown up and half- porcupine quills from under the frills roasted some time or other, though and flappets of a high French cap, and never the worse for it when we had in her ears, (prodigious ears they first the happiness of beholding him, were !) two monstrous gold rings, that except in the afore-mentioned trifling looked like the handles of a copper disarrangement of physiognomy, at tea-urn. We shrank back at sight of which, for my part, I was so far from this Gorgon, but she strutted towards conceiving any manner of disgust, that us with her arms a-kimbo, and there I thought the countenance had more was a sinister determination in the than gained in character and expres

tone in which she said to us,

" Walk sion, (which is everything you know,) in, ladies, and see the grotto.” She what it had lost in the trifling point, looked determined that we should see regularity of features.

There was it, and we looked at her claws and something infinitely piquant ! some- her fierce eyes, and felt she was not thing inexpressibly wild and pictu- a person to be affronted ; so, as our

evil stars had led us to the entrance of white wicket, and cry, "Walk in, laher den, we submitted to fate, and dies, for sixpence a-head.” followed the sylvan goddess—followed Sole guardians of the gate, two fine her through a dark, dirty, narrow old maples arched over it their inter. passage, out at a little mean door, into woven boughs; and many others, and

; an enclosed back-yard, about forty several majestic elms, were grouped feet square, divided into four com- together, or stood singly, in and about partments, containing a parterre-a the churchyard. A few cottages, with wilderness—a castle and the Grotto! pretty, neat gardens, were scattered and over the entrance to this Ely- around; and at the further end of a sium, was flung a wooden arch, paint- broad, smooth grass-plat, parallel with ed sky-blue, whereon it was notified the churchyard, and separated from in gold letters, that“ the whole was to it only by a low stone-wall, stood the be seen for the inconsiderable sum of rectory, a long, low, irregularly shaped sixpence a-head; moreover, that tea and building, of common brick, and with rolls, and all other refreshments, were a tiled roof, but made picturesque by furnished on equally reasonable terms." the rich and mellow colouring of age,

Oh ye Gods !--so we poor innocents and by the porches, pent-houses, and had been betrayed into a sixpenny tea- buttresses, the additions of many sucgarden, and, sure enough-there- cessive incumbents, and by a noble just opposite to us—perched upon a old vine, that covered the entire front, grass mound, in the-the-the don

a great part of the long sloping roof, jeon keep of the castle, I suppose, sat and had even been trained round one six merry mortals, in a state of earth- of the gables, up to the very top of a ly beatitude, their faces shining in the high stack of clustered chinineys. red-hot evening sun like fresh_var- Behind the church and rectory apnished vermilion coach-pannels, peared an undulating sea of foliage, swilling tea and negus, and stuffing ancient oak and beech, with here and down hot rolls, bread and butter, and there a graceful feathery birch, glancold ham, with most romantic fervour. cing and shivering in the sun, like We paid our sixpences, and made our silvery froth above the darker waves; retreat as quietly and civilly as possi- and beneath those venerable trees, windble, having first, to pacify our conduc- ed away a broad, shady, park-like road, tress, poked our noses into the dirty to which a gate opened from the lane coal-hole, stuck with bits of glass, that ran along, behind the church and oyster and periwinkle shells, which rectory. That road was the more private she called “ The Grotto ;” and you, approach to Halliburn House, the an, my dear Lilias, had the complaisance cient mansion of the De la Veres, and to mount up to the battlements of the every object in the surrounding scene castle, (where, by the by, you looked was, in one way or other, associated like Sister Anne în Bluebeard,) in with the past or present circumstances compliance with the Gorgon's impor- of that venerable race. The whole tunities. To you, therefore, we were in village had, in former times, been a debted for her gracious patronage, fief of their extensive lordship, and when, on inquiring, as we left the en- great part

of it was still in their poschanted garden, whether strangers' session. The living was in their gift, were allowed to see Halliburn House, and had always been held by a younger she replied, with a consequential toss son of their house, till the branches of her head, that she was well known began to fail about the old family tree. there, and that if we applied to the but- The church had been erected by their ler in the name of “Madam Simpson pious progenitors, and many succeedof the Grotto," we might be sureof im- ing De la Veres had beautified and enmediate admittance. So much for the larged it, and added gallery and organ first of our three lions; and truly we loft, and adorned the chancel with had obtained sixpennyworth for our carved and gilded work, and its long sixpence, in the patronage of " Ma- window, with painted glass, embladam Simpson of the Grotto.”

zoned with the twelve Apostles, and Five minutes' walk brought us to with the family escutcheon ; and had the next object in our itinerary, and enriched its altar with pix and chalice here no shock awaited us. No human of massy embossed silver, and with Gorgon-no officious guide~no Ma- fine damask napery, and with high dam Simpson, to Aling open the low branched candlesticks of silver gilt ; and with scarlet cushions and hassocks, And lower down, on the same page, is bordered with broad gold. lace, and again written, in larger and more an. sumptuously fringed and tasselled tique characters, with the same. And these pious benefactions of theirs, and their good

« Mye deare Childe dyed

june ye 26the, 1614, deeds that they did, and the ring of

in ye 19the yeare of her age. bells that they gave, and the gilt wea

“Ye Lord gave, & ye Lord takethe awaye. thercock that they caused to be set up Blessd be ye name of ye Lord !" on the church-steeple, and the new face wherewith they did repair and Those words have been blotted as they beautify the old clock that was there- were written, but not alone by the unin, and the marble font that they pre- steady hand of the writer. sented, and the alms-houses that they The book falls open at the Psalms. built, and the school that they endow. -See! at the xxth morning of the ed-are not all these things recorded month-and there! there in that in goodly golden capitals on divers very place, almost incorporated by age tablets, conspicuously affixed in sun- into the

very

substance of the paper, dry and several places in the said are a few stiff, shrunken rose leaves ! church; to wit, over the great door, They fell, doubtless, from the bosom

; and in the centre of the organ-loft, and of that young Agnes, on that happy in five several compartments along the birth-day;and before those leaves were pannelling of the long north gallery; withered, the human flower had dropt and to each and every one of those ho- into the dust! And now, what matnourable memorials are not the names ters it, or to whom, that the lovely and of the church-wardens, of the time be the loved was taken hence so early? ing, duly and reverently appended ? And all the chancel, and many other

And on the left, as you go up the parts of the church, are covered with chancel, immediately beside the gild- hatchments and monumental tablets ed rails of the altar, is the large, square, of the De la Veres. Of the former, commodious pew of the De la Veres, some, so faded and blurred by age and to which you ascend two steps. And damp, that the proud bend of the its floor is covered with what hath milk-white plume, towering from its been a rich, bright Turkey carpet; and coronated crest, is scarce distinguishthe damask with which it is lined and able from the skull that grins beneath, cushioned, was once resplendent crime in the centre of its half-obliterated son, now faded to tawny orange, and “ Resurgam."-On the right of the sorely perforated by the devouring altar, just opposite the family pew, is moth. And all the testaments, pray- a railed-in space, containing two moer-books, and hymn-books, lying on numents.-One of great antiquity ; the carved oak reading-shelves, are the other very ancient also, but of a bound in vellum, emblazoned with the much later age. Both are altar tombs. arms of the De la Veres, and clasped. The first-once deeply and richly or have been once, with brazen or sil- wrought with curious carved work ver clasps. But some of them have is worn away (all its acute angles and bulged out of all bookish shape, and salient points, and bold projections, the fine parchment covers have shrunk flattened and rounded off) to a mere up like sear and shrivelled leaves. oblong stone, one side of which has That small, thick prayer-book, in para sunk deep into the pavement of the ticular, that was once so splendidly church. Two figures, rudely sculpemblazoned—One clasp still hangs, by tured, are extended on it. One of a half a hinge, on one remaining cover knight in armour-(see! that mailed -the other is quite gone from the hand is almost perfect,) and of a lady, curled and tattered leaves. And see! whose square head-gear, descending on that blank leaf before the title- in straight folds on either side the face, page is some pale, discoloured writing. is still distinguishable, though the face First, in a fine, delicate, Italian hand, itself has long been worn away to a comes the name of

flat, polished surface just slightly in“ Agnes ile Vere-her Book,

dented at the place the mouth once ocYe gifte of her Hond Mother, cupied. The upper part of the knight's Dame Eleanor de la Vere, high Roman nose still projects from june ye 20the, 1614.”

his demolished visage ; and one can

.

still trace the prominent cheek-bones, And the surrounding inscriptions are and the bold martial brow

all legible. In the compartments op

posite, are the names of * Reginald de “ Outstretch'd together, are express'd la Vere,” and “ Dame Eleanor, his He and my ladye fair,

wife, the only daughter and heiress of With hands uplifted on the breast, Sir Marmaduke Hepburn." And in In attitude of prayer :

the next, and next, and yet another, Long-visaged-clad in armour, he- of three“ faire sonnes,” who preceded With ruffled arm and boddice, she.”

their parents to the grave-and last

(here is no vacant space,) of “ Agnes Their heads repose on a tasselled cu- de la Vere, their onlye daughter.". shion, and a greyhound couches at Ah! yes—the same. See there the end their feet--and on the sides of the of all things !—Illustrious descent tomb- - is it really impossible to heroic deeds-worldly prosperity-pamake out any part of that long inscrip- rental hopes-strength, youth, and tion ? -Surely some words are yet beauty !-" Sic transit gloria mundi.” legible here and there—some letters at Look! in that dark corner of the least. See ! that great R is plain— chancel, at the termination of that and the next letter, i-and all the fol- narrow passage running along from lowing ones may be spelt out with a the communion table behind the two little patience-and, lo! the name that monuments, is a low strong iron door, was doubtless consigned to immortali- just visible from the family pew. More ty—“Sir Richard de la Vere.”-And than half a century hath passed away then !-lower down, on that third line, since that door hath grated on its rusthe word—“ Plan- tagenet”-and ty hinges, but before that period, frethen again, “ Kge. E-W-" Ed- quently were its heavy bars removed, ward, surely—and those figures must and down the narrow stair to which it have designated him IIId of the name, opens, generation after generation of for immediately after, “ Cressy” is the De la Veres descended to their plainly discernible. And on the shield “ dark house of kindred dead," till no -what countless quarterings have space remained unoccupied in those been here! One may trace the com- silent chambers. And it should seem partments, but no more-and the rich that the extinction of the ancient race mantle ! and the barred helmet! and drew near, from the time that their then-oh, yes-surmounting the hel- sepulchral home, having received the met, there are the ducal coronet, and apportioned number for whom its rest the fine ostrich plumes, the noble was prepared, closed its inexorable achievement of the De la Veres, won by doors against their posterity. Certain that grim knight upon the plain of it is, that from about this time the Cressy—“ Requiescat in pace”-Sir name has been gradually perishing Richard de la Vere!

away from among the rolls of the liAnd on this other tomb are also ex- ving, till it rested at last with three tended two figures, male and female persons only, the son and two daugh-and theirs is the fashion of a later ters of the tenth Reginald. age.--There is the slashed vest, and That son was named after bis marthe bulky, padded shoulders and chest, tial ancestor, but the last Richard de and the trunk hose, and long pointed la Vere lived and died a man of peace, hoes, with larger rosettes, of Eliza- a widower, and childless ; for the wife

; eth's or James's era.—And the small of his youthful love had been taken uff and peaked beard of the male fi- from him in the first year of their

ure, and the chain, and the great union, and, from the time of her death, i humb_ring-all perfect.-And the withdrawing from the world and from Lady's little jewelled skull-cap, and public life, and well nigh from all monstrous ruff, and hour-glass shape, neighbourly intercourse, he had lived and the multitudinous plaits of her entirely at the old family mansion with nether garments.--And on that com- his two unmarried sisters, whose vepartment of the tomb, the shield, with neration for the last male survivor of the proud bearings, is visible enough their ancient race, as well as their It hath been emblazoned in colours strong affection for him, suffered them proper, and patches of gules and azure not to murmur, even in thought, at yet cling to the ground-work, and that the life of total seclusion, which, in all griffin's claw is still sheathed in or.- probability, condemned them to one of