manuscript, and who now promised to give it his favourable commendation should it appear in print.

Accordingly, among his earliest works was this book of epitaphs. It is hoped it answered the purpose of the publishers better than it did that of the author. The price agreed on for the copyright was fifty pounds; but as it was to be received in copies, and as Mr. Mogridge gave three-fourths of the books away, his pocket was thereby very little replenished. Like all other people, authors have to pay for their experience; and he who sets any value on his time, and is solicitous to add to his pecuniary resources, had better оссиру himself in a more promising subject than verses for tombstones. The design of

this volume was to give a greater variety of original epitaphs than had hitherto appeared. It was the writer's opinion that "the churchyard is a volume whose admonitions are sought when the heart is best prepared to receive them;" and hence the importance that inscriptions for the grave, when they do not consist of texts from Scripture, should be in harmony with its doctrines and precepts.

It is rather remarkable that an animated and lively mind should seek recreation among old yew trees, green hillocks, and sculptured urns.

Yet these had their attractions to Mr. Mogridge, and to his frequent musings among such mournful objects are we indebted for his first useful book. "I like not," he has been known to say, "to see a trodden-down grave, believing as I do that burial grounds have, or ought to have, an influence on the tone and morals of society. A churchyard is a volume where the wisest of us may learn a lesson of profitable instruction; and a mind duly impressed by reflection on the dead, will rarely indulge in bitterness towards the living. Pleasant is it to look on the memorials of affection that decorate the graves of the people of Wales. I want no affectation of sorrow, no unnecessary exhibition of grief, to mark the last resting-place of humanity; but I do love to see the grass-green sod look as though the mortal mouldering below were not forgotten.”

A few specimens from this work may not be without their interest:

ON A YOUNG FEMALE.

She is gone to the land where the care-worn and weary

Enjoy the sweet rapture of sacred repose ; She has quitted for ever this wilderness dreary, And bid a long farewell to time and its woes.

While on earth she was loved, and we deeply deplore her:

But, ah! shall a murmur escape from our breast? Do you ask how she lived? She set heaven before her.

Do you ask how she died? In the faith of the bless'd.

ON A PIOUS SAILOR.

Doom'd o'er the watery waste to roam,
Full oft he braved the tempest's strife,
Till his Redeemer call'd him home,
And he was shipwreck'd into life.

ON A HUMBLE-MINDED CHRISTIAN.

A lowly follower of the Lord above:

While here on earth his soul on heaven was bent; His words were kindness, and his deeds were love, His spirit humble, and his life well spent:

These, then, and not this stone, shall be his monument.

In

THE GRAVE'S APPEAL.

Art thou young, and wouldst thou live
peace that God alone can give,
Conquering every worldly lust?
Watch, and pray, and seek, and trust.

D

Art thou old, and wouldst thou die
A servant of the Lord on high?
Wouldst thou reign among the just ?
Watch, and pray, and seek, and trust.

Old and young, and rich and poor,
Sinner, Death is at the door;

All are hastening to the dust;
Watch, and pray, and seek, and trust.

THE WARNING VOICE.

In every stage of life is given

A warning voice: it comes from heaven.
In childhood's hour it breathes around-
"The fairest flowers are faded found."
In youth it whispers as a friend-

Reflect upon thy latter end."

In manhood louder swells the cry—
"Remember thou art born to die."
In age it thunders on the blast-
"O man! thy earthly years are past.”
In joy and grief, in ease and care,
In every stage, "Prepare, Prepare!"

ON A CHRISTIAN.

Well may ye weep, proud minions of an hour,
'Mid mouldering marble and decaying rhymes,
That earthly grandeur has so little power
To hand her greatness down to future times.

Though gorgeous pyramids in ruin lie,

The Christian's hope, uninjured, still remains; His faith is firm: his record is on high

His monument the heaven of heavens contains.

From the time when Milton hawked his immortal poem, "Paradise Lost," among the booksellers for five pounds, to the present day, many a young author has struggled hard to secure an introduction to the public. It may, therefore, be supposed that Mr. Mogridge, unknown to fame and without patronage, had to encounter not a few difficulties and disappointments. One manuscript offered by him to a bookseller was detained nearly three months before it was-not accepted, but declined. With another he was equally unsuccessful; for after he had walked a distance of fifty miles (ten miles five times over), to inquire of its success, he found that the paper had not been opened. In a third instance, a bookseller returned to him, in an unsealed packet, by an apprentice lad, his manuscript and letter, with the verbal message, "Declined." In a fourth a publisher, to whom he had offered a small manuscript for ten pounds, placed it flat on his counter, and measuring it with his hand, said, with a consequential air, that he had bought manuscripts double the height for five.

A new periodical about this time appeared