ple, once belonging to the Knights Templars, as several tombs in the church, which are still in exisience, indicate. And now having reached the boundary of the city, we will return and again visit the spot where stood the ancient and venerable cathedral of St. Paul. Of the present edifice we shall say nothing, as it has been already noticed in a former letter, but pass on to an instance of the edifying modes adopted by our pious reformers for promoting religion and morality among the populace, in an early stage of the reformation; we allude to the drawing of the first English lottery, which commenced on the 11th of January, 1569, at the western door of St.Paul's, and continued drawing day and night until the 6th of May, a worthy substitute for the former preaching at the pulpit-cross. In the yard adjoining, the merciful Elizabeth mildly promoted the cause of gospel liberty, by causing the rev. Thos. Portmore to be executed, for being a Catholic priest, and for having reconciled a person to the Catholic church, charitably wishing to relieve him from those sufferings which she herself had occasioned, by ordering him to be stretche ed upon the Tower rack. Here also suffered father Henry Garnet, who was unjustly accused of having a previous knowledge of Cecil's powder plot; this venerable man was not only himself exposed to the rack, but his servant also was so cruelly tortured upon the same instrument, that he expired when removed from it. How dullof comprehension are some persons! There have been many who could not discover the propriety of placing the statue of queen Ann, surrounded by a pretty group of heathen figures upon the site it now occupies, and these good folks invented the following distich : "Queen Ann, queen Ann, she has left us in the lurch, Her face to the gin shop, her back to the church." In Fleet-street the inhabitants witnessed the glowing zeal of their maiden queen, for there was exhibited the cheering spectacle of three fellow-countrymen suspended from the gallows, and publicly embowelled and quartered because they were Catholic priests. And in later days the same street has more than once been chosen the scene for popular ebullitions against popery to vent themselves. A curious instance of this is re #K corded in the Protestant Post Boy of the 20th of November, 1711. After describing the order of procession of a mock pageant which traversed most of the principal streets of the city, on the 17th of the same month," in commemoration of that blessed queen," it says, "the whole procession was attended with one hundred and fifty torches and flambeaus by order; but there were so many came in volunteers as made the numbers to be several thousands. Never were the balconies, windows and houses more filled, nor the streets more thronged, with multitudes of people, all expressing their abhorrence of popery with continual shouts and acclamations, so that in the whole progress of their procession, by a modest computation it is judged that there could be no less than 200,000 spectators."...." Thus with a slow and solemn state in some hours they arrived at Templebar, where all the houses seemed to be converted into heaps of men, women, and children, who were diverted with a variety of excellent fire-works. It is known that Temple bar, since its rebuilding, is adorned with four stately statues of stone, two on each side the gate; those towards the city representing queen Elizabeth and king James, and the other two towards the Strand king Charles the first and king Charles the second. Now in regard of the day the statue of queen Elizabeth was adorned with a crown of gilded laurel upon her head, and in her hand a golden shield with this motto inscribed thereon, "The Protestant Religion, Magna Charta." Several lighted torches were placed before her, and the pope brought up near the gate. Having entertained the thronging spectators for some time with ingenious fire-works; a very great bonfire was prepared at the Inner Temple gate; and his holiness, after some compliments and reluctances, was decently tumbled into the flames! the devil, who till then accompanied him, left him in the lurch, and laughing, gave him up to his deserved fate. This last act of his holiness's tragedy was attended with a prodigious shout of joyful spectators. The same evening there were bonfires in most of the streets of London, and universal acclamations, crying, "Let popery perish, and papists with their plots and counterplots be for ever confounded. Amen. Such, sir, were the scenes which about a century since disgrac ed the metropolis, when men led on by passion and prejudice were ready to sacrifice the lives of their fellow creatures, merely because they professed the creed of their ancestors. That such scenes may never again occur, is the fervent wish of Your's, &c. W. Y. FOR THE CATHOLIC MISCELLANY. OBSERVATIONS ON CHURCH-YARDS AND EPI-. TAPHS. MR. EDITOR,-Being frequently in the habit of rambling through country villages, I can never omit, on such occasions, paying a solitary visit to that receptacle of my fellow-clay, the church-yard. But here, where nothing but serious thoughts should reign; in this spot where truth should guide the chisel, and sober religion the language; here, I say, whilst I read over the tablet on which is inscribed the real or pretended virtues of a friend, husband, or wife, now no more, I am frequently obliged to turn away with disgust or pity at the uncouth or inappropriate praises expressed on some of these memoria sacras. Thus you may frequently see an account of the "Amiable wife and tender mother, Few can boast of such another." who, during her life, was the terror of the whole neighbourhood in which she lived, and all confess that a "6 Scolding wife and cruel mother" I would have suited the truth much better. I have read again on the tomb of the professed swearer and drunkard, that "he lived beloved and died lamented," and the sentence of scripture, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, profaned by being engraven at the bottom of his epitaph, in praise of the virtues which he never practiced, and condemnation of vices which he never shunned. Now such effusions as these from the friends of the deceased, may be all very well to be read by those who were unacquainted with the living characters, but in the minds of those who were witnesses of the profligacy of their lives, they produce nothing but pity and disgust. To exhibit virtue to the living in the most fascinating forms, and in the most frequent and public manner, no one can be a greater advocate than myself; to exhort the living to imitate the virtues, and shun the vices of the dead is certainly very commendable; but it is painful to see an epitaph of a truly virtuous character engraven on the tomb of one who wa⚫, during his life, a public scandal to the whole neighbourhood in which he resided. This surely is not the way to discountenance vice or to encourage virtue. But whence proceeds this inattention to the merits or demerits of the deceased? Does the fault rest with his friends? I answer no: not so much with them as with the stonemason and clergyman. It is certainly then a great oversight in the latter to permit any thing to be engraven on the stones in their respective burial grounds, which does not accord with truth: not a word more should be said of the virtues of the deceased than what he strictly deserved. I speak not of epitaphs which reprobate their vices, for this I believe is never done; indeed to judge from the epitaphs one might suppose that such an animal as a sinner never dies among us, or that sin was never known among us; but alas, how erroneous is such an idea. When living, none are more addicted to talk of the faults of their neighbours than our Protestant brethren, but when dead, not a word must be said of their vices: they may therefore in this particular be accounted the most uncharitable to their friends when living, and the most charitable to them when dead and can receive neither good or harm from it. I observed, that another cause of this inapplication of epitaphs was the stonemason:-this is owing to its being left in a general way to his choice: it is well known that he has a regular set of such articles which are frequently left to his own choosing, he having been first made acquainted with the manner of the persons death, whether Afflictions sore long time he bore," or whether it is a favourite child, who is then found exhorting his parents: Weep not for me my parents dear, dear To whom I should say, O cruel parents, to murder your and only child by burying it alive, or asleep, which is the same thing: your child tells you in the plainest terms, that he was not dead and yet you bury him! Others who have composed their own epitaphs, seem to have vied with each other in producing those of the most ludicrous nature, as if their whole aim was to make themselves the laughing stock and pity of their survivors. To show you how successful some have been in accomplishing this point, I will lay a few compositions of this kind before you, which I have copied from stones in different church yards. The two first are from the church-yard of Wymondham in Norfolk. First, Second, "Belov'd when living, To set at her head." " My glass is run, my life is spent In another church-yard, a few miles from the former, I copied the two following: "This world is vain and full of pain, With care and sorrow sure, And they are best, that are at rest This, Mr. Editor, is pretty tolerable, but who can read what follows without a smile? They must have marble features indeed that are not drawn into a wrinkle on reading the third line thereof. I at first intended to enlarge further upon this subject, but being pressed for time, must beg to defer it to some future number. Believe me, Mr. Editor, your well-wisher, Stafford, June 14, 1823. R. |