From a rational belief, that assembling in the church for public worship, during the summer heats, would spread and increase the infection, he agreed with his afflicted parishioners that he would read prayers to them three times in the week, and deliver his two sermons on the sabbath, from one of the perforated arches in the rocks of the verdant dingle, which I have described. By his directions, they ranged themselves on the grassy declivity, near the bottom, a yard distant from each other; the dell being so narrow, a speaker from that rock might be distinctly heard. Do you not see this dauntless minister of God stretching forth his hands from the rock, and preaching to his alarmed and distressed flock in that little wilderness? How solemn, how pathetic, must have been his exhortations, in those terrific hours!

The church-yard soon ceased to afford room for the dead; they were afterwards buried in a heathy hill above the village. Curious travellers take pleasure in visiting those tumuli, and in examining their yet distinct remains; also in descending from the cliffs, which brow the summit of the dingle, into the excavated rock from which Mr. Mompesson performed divine service, during that awful visitation. The consecrated rock is called Cucklet Church, by the villagers, to this day.

Mr. Mompesson remained in health during the whole time of the contagion ; but Providence saw fit to put his fortitude to a severer trial, than if he had seen the plaguespot indurated upon his own body. Amongst other precautions against the disease, Mrs. Mompesson had prevailed upon her husband to suffer an incision to be made in his leg, and kept open. One day she observed appearances in the wound which induced her belief that the contagion had found a vent that way, and that, consequently, the danger was over as to him; the digestion of the sore

being a certain sign of recovery. Instead of being shock. ed that the pestilence had entered her house, and that her weakness, for she was not in health, must next endure its fury, she expressed the most rapturous gratitude to Heaven for the apprehended deliverance of him, whom more than her life she loved. His letters, though he seems to think her conviction groundless concerning his having taken the disease, make grateful mention of that disinterested joy.

Mrs. Mompesson, however, soon after sickened of the plague, and expired in her husband's arms, in the twenty seventh year of her age. Her monument is now in Eyam church-yard, protected by iron rails, and with the inscription distinct. Her great grand-daughter's pious visit to the tomb of her excellent ancestress, when I was at Eyam with my father in my sixteenth year, proved the commencement of the friendship which subsists between that very accomplished lady and myself.

Upon the first appearance of the pestilence at Eyam, Mr. Mompesson informed the earl of Devonshire, then residing at Chatsworth, that he believed he could prevail upon his parishioners to confine themselves within the li mits of the village; provided his lordship would exert himself to induce the country round to supply them with necessaries, leaving such provisions as might be requested, in appointed places, and at appointed hours, upon the neighbouring hills.

The proposal was punctually complied with; and it is most remarkable, that when the pestilence became beyond conception terrible, not a single inhabitant attempted to pass the deathful bounds of the village, though a regiment of soldiers could not, in that rocky and try, have detained them against their will; much less could any watch, which might have been set by the

open coun

neighbourhood, have effected that infinitely important purpose.

By the influence of this exemplary man, the result of his pious and affectionate virtue, the rest of the county of Derby escaped the plague ; not one of the neighbouring towns, hamlets, nor even a single house, being infected beyond the limits of Eyam village, though the distemper remained there more than seven months.

Mr. Mompesson died in the year 1708. His memory ought never to die; it should be immortal as the spirit which made it worthy to live.

Your heart, I know, will expand over this faithful picture of elevated worth,

"Of courage that outshines, in its white hue,

The sanguine colour of the soldier's daring." In the summer of 1757, five labouring men, inhabitants of Eyam, were digging amongst the plague graves on the heathy mountain above the village, to make potato-ground for a cottage, which had been built there. They came to something which had the appearance of having once been linen. Conscious of its situation, they instantly buried it again; bat, in a few days, they all sickened of a putrid fever, and three out of the five died. It was so contagious, that the sick could procure no attendance out of their own families. The disease proved mortal to seventy persons of Eyam.

My father, who had two years before been appointed canon of Lichfield, was residing with his family in that city, at the period when the subtle, unextinguished, though much abated power of this superlatively dreadful disease awakened from the dust, in which it had slum, bered ninety one years.

Adieu !

Anna Seward.

LETTER III.

Sir William Jones to lady Spencer.-Visit to the

Madam,

residence of Milton.

September 7, 1769.

The necessary trouble of correcting the first sheets of my history*, prevented me to-day from paying respect to the memory of Shakspeare, by attending his jubilee. But I was resolved to do all the honour in my power to as great a poet: and I set out in the morning, in company with a friend, to visit a place, where Milton spent some part of his life, and where, in all probability, he composed several of his earliest productions. It is a small village situated on a pleasant hill, about three miles from Oxford, called Forest Hill, because it formerly lay contiguous to a forest, which has since been cut down. The poet chose this place of retirement after his first marriage; and he describes the beauties of his retreat in that fine passage of his " L'Allegro :"

"Sometime walking, not unseen,

By hedge-row elms on hillocs green,

When the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land;
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his sithe;
And ev'ry shepherd tells his tale,
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landscape round it measures:

Russet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;

His translation, from the Persian, of the life of Nadir Shah.

It was neither the proper season of the year, nor the time of the day, to hear all the rural sounds, and to see all the objects, mentioned in this description: but, by a pleasing concurrence of circumstances, we were saluted on our approach to the village, with the music of the mower and his sithe; we saw the ploughman intent upon his labour, and the milk-maid returning from her country employment.

As we ascended the hill, the variety of beautiful objects, the agreeable stillness and natural simplicity of the whole scene, gave us the highest pleasure. At length, we reached the spot, whence Milton undoubtedly took most of his images: it is on the top of the hill, from which there is a most extensive prospect on all sides. The distant mountains that seemed to support the clouds; the villages and turrets, partly shaded with trees of the finest verdure, and partly raised above the groves that surrounded them; the dark plains and meadows of a grayish colour, where the sheep were feeding at large; in short, the view of the streams and rivers; convinced us that there was not a single useless or idle word in the above-mentioned description, but that it was a most exact and lively representation of nature. Thus will this fine passage, which has always been admired for its elegance, receive an additional beauty from its exactness.