22 
REFLECTIONS on TOMB STONES, 
country here is delightfully wooded, and abounds in corn lands ; 
whilft the inequality of the ground affords an uninterrupted en- 
tertainment to the eye. This crofs road, I prefume, is difficult 
to pafs in the winter feafon. 
From rumsey, purfuing our journey, we ftopt at the little 
village, I think they called it white parish. Whilft the 
horfes were watering I ftrolled into the churchyard. Whether 
from the confideration of our common mortality, or only for 
the pleafure of filling up a vacant moment in any rational way, 
but I always find myfelf led, on thefe occafions, by a kind of 
inftindl. Good God! what nonfenfe is handed down to pofterity, 
engraved on ftone ! ’Tis ffiameful to a nation that any of their 
clergy fhould be illiterate or lazy. Ought not the vicar or 
his curate to inform his parifhioners, how admirably adapted 
many pafiages, in the old and new teftament, are to thefe occa- 
fions ? We fee how the harmony of numbers enchants ! Thefe 
attempts of the unletter’d mufe are a proof of it. But poetry 
does not confift merely in rhyme ; and the words of men are 
not fo good as the word of God. What think you of this 
epitaph ? 
“ This world is full of crooked freets ; 
cc Death is a place where all men meets ; 
<c If life were fold that men could buy , 
<c The rich would live , the poor muft die.” 
Let us confider, on the other hand, fuch thoughts as thefe : 
u This 
