In 1646 he formed a regiment for the service of the French King, became its colonel, and was wounded at Dunkirk. In 1648 he returned to England with his brother: but unhappily his mistress, hearing that her lover had died of his wounds at Dunkirk, had married another. Thus disappointed in his love, and anguished past endurance by the death of his royal master, Charles I., the gallant and high-souled poet found himself at liberty, after a second imprisonment,* without any residue of the fortune he had bestowed with too liberal a hand upon those who needed. His monarch and his mistress, the continued and frequentlyassociated themes of his muse, both lost to him, he bowed his head to the dispensations of Providence, and prepared for death as for the friend

'who only could restore

The libertie he must enjoy on earth no more.'

No longer dressed as became his rank, the nodding feather fell away from the velvet hat, the satin dropped from the slashed sleeve, the threadbare hose became a world too large for the shrunk limb; and so Sir Richard Lovelace pined and died, in the year 1658, in a miserable room in Gunpowder Alley, Shoe Lane, adding another to the list of unfortunate poets; another to that of those who endowed by nature with the richest and brightest of all earthly gifts, seem fated to an inheritance of misery! Wood says, that having consumed his estate, he grew very melancholy, which at length brought him into a consumption; became very poor in body and purse; was the object of charity; went in ragged clothes (whereas when he was in his glory, he wore clothes of gold and silver); and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places, more befitting the worst of beggars and poorest of servants.' Were there none to alleviate the sorrows of his last hours? None to wipe the death-dews from his high and noble brow? None who, for the love of honour, for the sake of royalty-in memory of what he had been to all who needed-so unselfishly generous, so unsparingly liberal-was there not one, even of those who had chorussed his songs, and been warmed in the brightness of his glorious days, to sit by that lowly deathbed, and whisper the assurance that he was only

* In Peter House, London, to which he was committed soon after his return, and where he remained until after the King's death.

passing through the dark valley to enter upon an immortality where sorrow and sighing should be no more, and where loyalty is perfected in homage to the Almighty? There might have been-there must have beenthough of such there is no earthly record. But it would be an insult to human nature to suppose he died alone-alone in that room which echoed back the dreadful cough telling of the wasting disease that terminated the earthly career of as gallant and true a gentleman as ever wielded sword or pen.

And so he died, and was buried, according to all chronicles, in the beautiful church of St. Bride's; and thither we went to seek either for a tablet to his memory or for the record of his burial in the church books. Some charity-children were passing out as we entered the gate that may be called 'beautiful;' and wandering along the aisles, attended by the intelligent and obliging sextoness, we found the spot where Richardson, the author of that everlasting Sir Charles Grandison,' is interred; but we found nothing of Lovelace; and then we passed into the vestry, and were much struck with an ancient cofre, the lid of which is one huge lock, and sundry curious relics, and then carefully examined the church books, some of which bore evidence, by their discoloured leaves, of having suffered in the great London fire, and found therein, about the date of his death, two buried of the name, but none by the Christian name of RICHARD.

The woman asked if he were of our kin. We told her no, not in the flesh; but that we loved his memory well, and honoured him as one who with a most worthy mixture of courtliness and benevolence, was of marvellous talent, unshaken loyalty, and bravery unsurpassed.

THE GRAVE OF GRACE AGUILAR.

ILGRIMAGES, pilgrimages!' exclaimed a German friend whose family had been shorn of its olive branches ' by so many hurricanes, that, although still in the prime of life, his head was bowed and his hair grey :

Pilgrimages! what is life but a pilgrimage over graves!' The older we grow, the better we compre. hend the force of this sad truth; life is indeed a 'pilgrimage over graves; but how different are the ideas and emotions they suggest or excite !

In pent-up cities, the graves cluster round ancient churches; congregations after congregations are pressed into festering earth until the enclosure becomes a charnel-house; yet they prove how devoutly later occupants have longed to rest in death with the loved in life. The nameless mounds are hardly shrouded by broken turf; records, on the cankering crumbling head-stones, are almost obliterated; some are closely bordered and capped by heavy stones, as if rich inheritors dreaded a resurrection; others there are, where the dock and the nettle are matted around rusty railings, as though no hand remained that ever pressed, in friendship or affection, the hand which moulders beneath; others again, are marked by broad head-stones, new and well-lettered, the black on the pure white setting forth a proud array of virtues, of which the co-mates of the departed never heard; a few dingy and heavy monuments stand apart, and look down with civic haughtiness on humbler graves. Repulsive

specimens of bad taste are these claborate monuments often; in their ornaments so unmeaning, their clumsy dignity so intrusive, so coarsely ostentatious-the epitaphs so earnest in saying by whom the carved stones were erected!

Our village churchyards, lying away amid glorious trees, or tranquil valleys, or sleeping on the sloping hills, where birds sing, lambs bleat, and ploughboys whistle,'-however picturesque they may appear in the distance, have frequently the same uncared-for aspect as those within the city. We love the living, but we seem to care little for the dead. However much we may muse on crossing the churchyard,' or indulge in pocsy, where

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep ;'

our places of burial, with the exception of cemeteries, which are as yet too new to show what they may become, bear but slight testimony to the 'love that lives for ever.' The contrast is humiliating when we visit other lands and mark the attention paid to graves of relatives and friends. A certain sum is annually set apart by the peasants in many districts of France, for visiting and decking the resting-places of those whom Death has taken; the fresh garland is hung on the simple cross, and the prayer earnestly repeated for the soul's peace; and these tributes continue for years and years, long after the bitterness of sorrow has passed away.

We have seen an aged woman with white hair strewing flowers on her mother's grave, though forty years had passed since the separation of the living from the dead; and once, attracted by the beauty of a girl who had been decking, and then praying beside a nameless grave, we asked for whom she mourned-although the word mourned' had little association with her bright face and sunny smile.

She answered, none of her people slept there; she had nothing of herself to do with graves; it was Marie's mother's grave, and Marie had gone far away-to England. Marie was her friend, and she had promised her that she would deck that grave, and pray beside it; and all for the love she bore her friend. We asked if she was certain Marie would return:

No, there was no certainty, but she would watch the grave and deck

GO

it, and say the prayers Marie would have said, all the same; she loved Marie, and had promised her.' There was something very tender in this friendly fidelity, this tending the dead for the sake of the living-the living dead to her.

For ourselves, the place of tombs has rarely been one of sorrow; we have loved to visit the last dwellings of those who have gone home before us. We have thought of the enjoyment of re-union; and dwelt upon the delight of an eternity of harmony and love-that perfect love which casteth out fear.' We have speculated on seeing Milton in the company of angels-on recognising Bunyan with the faithful-on beholding Fénélon at the right hand,' and Mendelssohn among the chosen! Knowing that God is a more merciful judge than man, we believe that there we shall see many faiths prostrate in adoration of the one great LORD, who is for all, and above all, and in us all.' We have looked to the higher nature, the divine essence, of those we have honoured; and when noble deeds have been done, or lofty genius has triumphed, we have listened with more than doubt to the insinuations of those who, in former, as in present, times, aim to detract from the excellence it is not given them to understand. We do not cater for the prejudices of sects or parties, but simply desire to lay our tribute of homage on the graves of those who seem to us most worthy, and have been most useful. We have enjoyed the high privilege of knowing many remarkable people who have passed from among us during the last twenty years-having won for themselves a glorious immortality by the exercise of talents which, in any other country would have led to national distinctions. Yet they are well remembered! and to them be all the glory of success. The memory of these-great lights, great authors, great statesmen, great philosophers, great warriors, -is still

'Green in our souls.'

But there were some stars of lesser magnitude who, if longer spared among us, would have become luminaries of power; some who were summoned, when, according to our finite views, they had arrived at the period for their faculties to expand, and they were about to reap the harvest of long years of labour and of care; such was Mrs. Fletcher, better known