Having cleared the way in the preceding stanzas, he now enters upon his ground, and lays out his Church-yard in form. Here Criticism is posed, unable to answer the question, "What is the most proper church-yard ?" Whether there be a taste in church-yards; and a selection of capabilities required in this, as well as in other modifications of terrene surface, I am uncertain. Nor do I know that Kent, or the other English architects, ever laid out a church-yard; though it appears that the Scotch, who are eager to make the most of every thing, have taken even that into their general plan of pleasure ground.' Gray's Church-yard has been designed: But the fancy of Cipriani, wedded to the softness of Bartolozzi, has not been able to produce from it any thing that makes

Called by them Policy.'

a decisive appeal to any strong feeling of the heart.

Neither of Parnell, nor of Gray, does the Church-yard contain any thing that any church-yard might not contain. Of Parnell, the Church-yard and its environs are thus presented to the reader's view : "In distant prospect, a lake:

resting on its bosom, the moon, sur❝rounded by stars, having for ground a sky deep azure: on the right, rising

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grounds," retiring in dimness from the sight" on the left, the Church-yard; or (as he, in imitation of the Hebrew simplicity, calls it) the place of graves, .surrounded by a wall, which is laved by a silent stream: a steeple, belong

ing, no doubt, to the church: a char"nel-house, over-canopied with yew: graves, with their turf osier-bound : "other graves, with smooth flat stones "inscribed and others still, splendidly "done out with marble, &c."

Gray's Church-yard is thus connected with its adjuncts, and presented to the reader's eye: "In near prospect, a vil

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lage: herds and labourers returning "home: glimmering landscape: tower ivy-mantled, surmounted by an owl, " in profile and perspective, skirting the "moon: rugged elms: shady yew: an "old thorn; and the surface swelling "here and there with common graves. Hard by is a wood, a nodding beech, "and a brook running over pebbles."

Of the two designs, taken in a general view, that of Parnell seems the more perfect. The assemblage takes in every thing that a church-yard should contain; and a gradation of graves is introduced, with due attention to the distinction of ranks, which is not lost even in a church-yard. In this respect, Gray's Church-yard is imperfect; and the imperfection has deprived his meditation of some of its interest. It has, besides,

no charnel-house. In other respects, it is much as it should be; which, at best, is but a negative merit. The absence of blemish is not perfection: and of that officer, small will be the claim to praise, who, complying with the rule of the service, comes out to mount guard in his regimentals.

IV.

Of inaccuracy in the formation of the thought, the fourth quatrain furnishes some examples. It is more according to truth, as well as convenience, to suppose a church-yard hedged round with trees, than planted with them. A churchyard is not a thicket. A human body buried at the foot of a large tree, with strong spreading roots, is more consonant to poetry than to practice. It is not true,

that, in an ordinary assemblage of graves, the "turf heaves in mouldering heaps." If the ground heaves, no doubt the turf will heave with it: but the "heaps," if they are "mouldering heaps," must heave through the turf, not the turf in them. "Rude forefathers of the hamlet," is equivocal. The forefathers of a hamlet should mean other, more ancient, hamlets. But of hamlets there are no genealogies. Among them no degrees of consanguinity are reckoned.

V. VI.

The two following stanzas contain a paraphrase of the two last lines of the preceding; viz.

"Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

"The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep ;"

and, of this paraphrase, it may be grant