rare beauty or of peculiar interest. But it contains some monuments of the Cavendish family, which never fail to attract the stranger and to convince the native that, take one thing with another, there is no place like Bolsover-in which opinion, though in a somewhat different sense, I agree with him. Had I not said so much about tombs elsewhere, I would say more of these really imposing and worthy pieces of work; as it is I shall content myself with giving the following inscription from the monument of Sir Charles Cavendish, who died in 1617.

CHARLES CAVENDISH TO HIS SONS.

Sonnes, seek me not among these polish'd stones,
These only hide part of my flesh and bones;
Which did they here so neat and proudly dwell,
Will all be dust, and may not make me swell.

Let such as have outliv'd all praise,

Trust in the tombes their careful friends do raise ;

I made my life my monument, and yours,

To which there's no material that endures;

Nor yet inscription like it. Write but that

And teach your nephews it to emulate;
It will be matter loude enough to tell

Not when I died, but how I liv'd-Farewell!

HIS POSTERITIE OF HIM TO STRANGERS.

Charles Cavendish was a man whom
Knowledge, zeal, sincerity, made religious;
Experience, discretion, courage made valiant;
Reading, conference, judgment, made learned;
Religion, valour, learning, made wise;
Birth, merit, favour, made noble ;
Respect, meanes, charitie, made bountiful;
Equitie, conscience, office, made just;

Nobilitie, bountie, justice, made honourable;
Counsell, ayde, secrecie, made a trustie friende;
Love, truth, constancie, made a kind husband;
Affection, advice, care, made a loving father;
Friends, wife, sonnes, made content;
Wisdom, honour, content, made happy.

From which happiness he was translated to the better on the 4th April, 1617, yet not without the sad and weeping remembrance of his sorrowful Lady, Katherine; second daughter to Cuthbert, Lord Ogle, and sister to Jane, present Countess of Shrewsbury. She, of her piety, with her two surviving sons, have dedicated this humble monument to his memory, and do all desire, in their time, to be gathered to his dust, expecting the happy hour of resurrection, when these garments here putting off shall be put on glorified.

Sir Charles deserved the high praise given him, but the information given in the latter part of the inscription, of the dignity, piety and desire of his widow, somehow or other reminds me of an epitaph which is said to be in a cemetery in the environs of Paris: "Here lies Madame Nwife of M. N —, master blacksmith. The railing round this tomb was manufactured by her husband."

The oldest memorial in the church dates from 1310. Outside the following lines may be found on grave-stones. They have the usual quaintness common to epitaphs written in old time:

Here lies, in an horizontal position, the outside case of Thomas Hinde, clock and watch maker, who departed this life, wound up, in hope of being taken in hand by his Maker, and of being thoroughly cleaned, repaired, and set going in the world to come.

Blame not my faults

When I am gone,

But look within

And see your own.

A father kind, a mother dear,
A faithful pair lies buried here;
Free from malice, void of pride,
So they lived, and so they died.

I left this world at twenty-two,
And my sweet babes behind,

My husband he left them and me,
To us he was unkind.
Mercy shew, and pity take,
And love my children for my sake.

Once I was stout and bold,

But at length my Bell was tol'd;
Seven children I have left behind,
And in this yard have buried five.

One smiles at epitaphs such as these-not unkindly or even irreverently, I hope. They are odd, but they also tell of affection and sympathy. Tears were shed and hearts trembled beside these graves over which the village poet exercised his art. And the friends, you may be sure, were entirely unconscious of any suggestion of impropriety in those rhymes. On the contrary, they probably thought them most excellent; and though, so far as art goes, too often the rhythm and the rhyme are bad and the thought is grotesque, yet once in a while a bit of better work appears, as in an inscription in Selstone Churchyard-a village about half-way between Bolsover and Nottingham; the date is 1798:

Involved in dust here lies the last remains

Of him who firmly bore life's lingering frames;
A much-loved husband and a friend sincere,
Courteous to all, and to his children dear.

And when one thinks of these "untold sorrows" which these country churchyards have witnessed, and before one's eye, as in a picture, comes the spectacle of weeping women and stalwart, pale-faced men, standing beside the body of their loved one wrapt in the winding-sheet and about to be laid into the earth, one remembers with delight the hold which the doctrine of the Resurrection had upon these people. They never doubted that the one whose last hours on earth they had sought to brighten was at rest with God, and would again stand upon the earth. They felt the force and the tenderness of the words which are ever said beside English graves: "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed." The soul of the dear one who lay before them was not merely taken out of the world that is a cold and lifeless expression-but it was by God's own hands taken unto Himself: to endless felicity, and in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life. So the widow and the orphan saw the earth cast upon the body of their dead, and with their simple, steadfast faith wrestled hopefully and nobly against the grief that had entered into their heart, and addressed themselves to the duties which still remained with them. The dead would live again: so spring brought back the flowers, and so the angel of the Resurrection told the women who came weeping to the grave of their Lord.