hermit; and the poet, from the habit of seeing
so much in everything that he looks
on, makes a refuge for himself against vicissitude
out of his books and his fireside.

James Mill, in June, eighteen hundred and
thirty-six, aged sixty-two, the historian of
British India. He has a tablet on one of the
pillars in the church. Mr. Mill persuaded
himself that a man who had never been in
India, and who knew none of its languages,
was better qualified to write a history of that
country than one who had. The consequence
of this paradox was, that after his death the
bookseller found it necessary to employ one
of the persons thus described as less competent
for the purpose of correcting the
mistakes of his predecessor. Nevertheless,
Mr. Mill's history was a work so remarkable
for its ability, that although he had found
great fault with the East India Company,
they, much to the credit of their feelings or
their policy, appointed him to a considerable
office in their establishment. Would to
Heaven they had empowered him to give
the unfortunate millions under their government
fewer reasons to curse their officers
in general, and a little more salt to their
rice.

George Colman the younger, in October,
eighteen hundred and thirty-six, aged seventy-four;
a more amusing though not so judicious
a dramatist as his father. His excellence
lay in farce. His greatest defect was
in sentiment, for which he substituted noise
or common-place. In the decline of life he
attained to a very unlucky piece of prosperity.
He was appointed dramatic censor; that is
to say, reviser, under government, of plays
offered to managers for performance; and in
the exercise of this office, with a ludicrous
and unblushing severity he struck out of the
pieces submitted to him every the least oath
and adjuration, with which his own plays had
been plentifully garnished.

"A. H. C, eighteen hundred and thirty-seven,
aged three years and eight months;"
and "T. F. C, eighteen hundred and fifty-one,
aged twenty-one years." We know not
who the C's were; we notice them, because
their grave, the only one in the churchyard
so distinguished, is adorned with flowers. A
printed tablet requests people not to pluck
the flowers; and the request appears to be
attended to. Human kind are disposed to be
reasonable and feeling, if reasonable appeal
is made to them, and a chord in the heart is
touched. The public cemeteries, which we
have imitated from the French, appear to
have brought back among us this inclination
to put flowers on graves. The custom has
prevailed more or less in almost all parts of
the world, according as nations and religions
have been kindly. It is the Puritans who
would seem to have done it away in England
and Scotland. Wales, we believe, is the
only part of the island in which it has never
been discontinued. The custom is surely good
and desirable. It does not follow that those
who are slow to resume it must be unfeeling,
any more than that those who are quick
must of necessity be otherwise, A variety of
thoughts on the subject of death itself may
produce different impressions in this respect
on different minds. But, generally speaking,
evidence is in favour of the flowers. You
are sure that those who put them think of
the dead somehow. Whatever motives may
be mixed up with it, the respectful attention
solicited towards the departed is unequivocal;
and this circumstance is pleasing to the
living, and may benefit their dispositions.
They think that their own memories may
probably be cherished in like manner; and
thoughtfulness is awakened in them, towards
living as well as dead. It is the peculiar
privilege too of flowers to befit every place in
which they appear, and to contribute to it its
best associations. We had almost said, they
are incapable of being put to unworthy
use. The contradiction would look simply
monstrous, and the flowers be pitied for the
insult. No butcher would think of putting
them in a slaughter-house; unless indeed they
could overpower its odour. No inquisitor was
ever cruel or impudent enough to wreathe
flowers about a rack. Flowers, besides being
beautiful themselves, are suggesters of every
other kind of beauty—of gentleness, of youthfulness,
of hope. They are evidences of Nature's
good-nature; proofs manifest that she means,
us well, and more than well; that she loves to
give us the beautiful in addition to the useful.
They neutralize bad with good; beautify good
itself; make life livelier; human bloom more
blooming; and anticipate the spring of heaven
over the winter of the grave. Their very
frailty, and the shortness of their lives,
please us, because of this their indestructible
association with beauty; for while
they make us regret our own like transitory
existence, they soothe us with a
consciousness, however dim, of our power to
perceive beauty; therefore of our link with
something divine and deathless, and of our
right to hope that immortal thoughts will
have immortal realisation. And it is for all
these reasons that flowers on graves are
beautiful, and that we hope to see them
prosper accordingly. But we have two more
reasons for noticing the particular grave
before us. One is, that when we saw it for
the first time, a dog came nestling against it,
as if with affection; taking up his bed (in
which we left him) as though he had again
settled himself beside a master. The other,
that while again looking at the grave, and
thinking how becomingly the flowers were
attended to, being as fresh as when we saw
them before, a voice behind us said gently,
"Those are my dear children!" It was the
mother. She had seen us perhaps, looking
longer than was customary, and thus been
induced to speak. We violate no delicacy in
mentioning the circumstance. Records on