BY ENGLISH AND OTHER AUTHORS.

ON THE VENERABLE BEDE, OB. 735.

ENEATH this stone Bede's mortal body

lies;

God grant his soul may rest amid the skies. May he drink deeply, in the realms above, Of wisdom's fount, which he on earth did love.

ON HENRY II. KING OF ENGLAND.1

IF conquer'd realms, or power, from death could save, I, Henry, mighty king, had 'scaped the grave!

1 This great monarch added many provinces in France to the English crown, and in 1172 conquered Ireland. The Statutes of Clarendon enacted, in a parliament held at Clarendon (1164), "These stringent laws were passed to prevent the chief abuses which at that time prevailed in ecclesiastical affairs, and put a stop to Church usurpations, which, gradually stealing on, threatened the destruction of the civil and royal power."-Hume.

Henry's reign was troubled by disputes with that low-bred upstart, Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and by the rebel

To me, who thought the earth's extent too small,
Now eight poor feet, a narrow space, are all.
Reader! behold in mine thy own sure fate,
And curb thy vast desires, and know thy state;
He, whom the globe entire could not suffice,
In this small tomb, in smaller ashes lies.

ON CHAUCER, OB. 1400.

OF English bards who sung the sweetest strains,
Old Geoffrey Chaucer now this tomb contains:
For his death's date, if, reader, thou should'st call,
Look but beneath, and it will tell thee all.

Of Pope Alexander VI. of Spanish origin, and his son, Cæsar Borgia, it was truly said, "There is hardly a crime of which these monsters of iniquity were not guilty." In 1503 they attempted to poison a rich cardinal on account of his wealth, when, by a mistake of the attendant, they drank the poisoned wine destined for their victim. The Pope died almost directly, but

lion of his own sons, instigated by their mother on account of his attachment to the Fair Rosamond; but he succeeded in triumphing over every opponent. On his fair mistress was written the following couplet:

HIC jacet in tumba Rosa Mundi, non Rosamunda :
Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet.

Thus in English:

HERE lies, not Rose the Chaste, but Rose the Fair:
Her scents no more perfume, but taint the air.

Borgia recovered, and was killed some years after. On the former was written:

THE Spaniard lieth here that did all honesty defy :
To speak it briefly, in this tomb all villany doth lie.

WRITTEN ON THE SPOT WHERE CARDINAL WOLSEY IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN BURIED IN

LEICESTER ABBEY.

PEERS, priests, and princes, lords of every clan,

Who in the title's vapour lose the man;

Mark this plain spot, where grovelling brambles wave
In humble verdure over Wolsey's grave:
His purple honours, and pontific pride,
With all life's baubles, now are laid aside.
Here, stripp'd to Nature, and without disguise,
The "Child of Fortune," undistinguish'd lies:
O'er his cold turf th' unmanner'd travellers go,
Nor heed how great a statesman rots below.2

2 Wolsey first gained the favour of Henry VII. who made him Dean of Lincoln. He rose rapidly to the highest dignities of the realm, and became Lord Chancellor and Cardinal. His fall was mainly owing to these causes: he had counselled the king (Henry VIII.) to divorce Catherine, but not to marry Anne Boleyn; thus making enemies of the new queen, and of a powerful party which supported her at Court. "He was a

man of unbounded ambition and of great arrogance, but of considerable learning, and great policy. He built Hampton Court Palace, and founded Christ Church College, Oxford,"

F

ON FRANCIS BEAUMONT, OB. 1615, ÆT. 29.

HE that hath such acuteness, and such wit,
As would ask ten good heads to husband it ;
He that can write so well that no man dare
Refuse it for the best, let him beware:
Beaumont is dead, by whose sole death appears,
Wit's a disease consumes men in few years.

Bishop Corbet.

The names of Beaumont and Fletcher will, as long as the English language shall last, be associated as two of the brightest ornaments of our dramatic litera

ture.

Spenser, the author of the "Faerie Queen," died in 1598, and lies buried in Westminster Abbey near Chaucer, who was the first that successfully wrote poetry in the English language, over whom are the following lines:

HERE, placed near Chaucer, Spenser claims a room,
As next to him in merit, next his tomb.

To place near Chaucer, Spenser lays a claim;
Near him his tomb, but nearer far his fame.
With thee our English verse was raised on high;
But now declined, it fears with thee to die.

Of Chaucer's poems, his "Canterbury Tales” are entitled to the first rank, and possess great beauties; and from the knowledge they display of human nature, seem to have been produced for all time, ob. 1400.