Death has indeed been here, and its traces are
before us; but they are softened and deprived of their horror by our
distance from the period when they have been first impressed. Those who
sleep beneath are only connected with us by the reflection, that they
have once been what we now are, and that, as their relics are now
identified with their mother earth, ours shall, at some future period,
undergo the same transformation.
"Yet, although the moss has been collected on the most modern of these
humble tombs during four generations of mankind, the memory of some of
those who sleep beneath them is still held in reverent remembrance. It is
true, that, upon the largest, and, to an antiquary, the most interesting
monument of the group, which bears the effigies of a doughty knight in
his hood of mail, with his shield hanging on his breast, the armorial
bearings are defaced by time, and a few worn-out letters may be read at
the pleasure of the decipherer, Dns. Johan--de Hamel,--or Johan--de
Lamel--And it is also true, that of another tomb, richly sculptured with
an ornamental cross, mitre, and pastoral staff, tradition can only aver,
that a certain nameless bishop lies interred there. But upon other two
stones which lie beside, may still be read in rude prose, and ruder
rhyme, the history of those who sleep beneath them. They belong, we are
assured by the epitaph, to the class of persecuted Presbyterians who
afforded a melancholy subject for history in the times of Charles II.
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