DR. DARWIN. 345 



the grave, and breathing a pious hope of 

 their refurre&ion. The fimile on this oc- 

 fion is perhaps the fublimeft paflage in the 

 whole work ; it's real, and, in former ages, 

 often exifting horrors, tranfcend in ftrength 

 all Imagination has formed, or can form, 

 with her train of fpedres, witches, and 

 demons : 



So when the Plague, o'er London's gafping crowds. 

 Shook her dank wing, and fteer'd her murky clouds j 

 When o'er the friendlefs bier no rites were read, 

 No dirge {low chanted, and no pall outfpread j 

 While Death and Night pil'd up the naked throng, 

 And Silence drove their ebon cars along, 

 Six * lovely daughters, and their father, fwept 

 To the throng'd grave, Cleone faw, and wept. 

 Her tender mind, with meek religion fraught, 

 Prank, all-refign'd, Affliction's bitter draught j 



* During the laft great plague in London, one pit, to receive the 

 dead, was dug in the Charter Houfe, forty feet long, fixteen feet wide, 

 and twenty feet deep, and in two weeks received 1114 bodies. During 

 this dire calamity there were inftances of mothers carrying their own 

 children to thofe public graves ; arid of people delirious, or in defpair 

 for the lofs of friends, who threw themfelves alive into thefe pits. 

 See Journal of the Plague in 1665, printed for E. Nutt, Royal Ex- 

 change. 



Alive, 



