describe all that is worth describing in this magnificent church. The chapel of the Holy Trinity; the chapel of St. Edmund the Martyr; the chantry chapel, erected by Abbot Parker; the monument of the "starved monk;" in a word, every chapel, monument, and part of the place, so abounding in beauty, merits a larger notice than these necessarily brief allusions. Let all who admire poetry and loveliness in stone visit the Abbey Church of Tewkesbury.

There are few epitaphs here worth quoting. Many of them prove that in olden times they knew how to "lay it on thick" in these posthumous eulogies, as well as they do at the present time. It is a curious and melancholy fact, that our tombstone literature is the most splendidè mendax of all. People put on a monument words which they would blush to speak, and fill "God's acre" with the grossest and most shameful flatteries. "Where do they bury all the wicked people?" was the question of one who had been engaged in reading the epitaphs in a country churchyard. Judging by these records, they are never buried at all; certainly a wicked one never attained the honour of a tombstone. Here is a specimen written in the twelfth century, on Richard de Clare, Earl of Hertford and Gloucester, and his wife Maud:

"Hic pudor Hippoliti, Paridis gena, sensus Ulyssis,
Enea pietas, Hectoris ira jacet.”

Which little bit of praise is thus Englished

"Chaste Hippolite and Paris fair, Ulysses wise and sly,
Eneas kind, fierce Hector, here jointly entombed lye."

One fair lady, who died in 1656, is thus handed down to an astonished and admiring posterity :

"She was the mirror of her sex

for vertue and true pietie;
A patterne faire and cleere Index

for meekness and Sobriety.

God grant us all, whilst glass doth runn,

to live in Christ as she hath done."

Our bachelor readers would like to know such a "mirror of her sex," and at once become Benedicts. A Mr. Thomas Merrett is immortalized in an acrostic :

"Though only stone salute the reader's eye,
Here in deep silence precious dust doth lye,
Obscurely sleeping in Death's mighty store,
M ingled with common earth till times's no more.
A gainst Death's stubborn laws who dare repine,
Since so much Merrit did his life resign?

M urmours and tears are useless in the grave,
Else hee whole vollies at his tomb might have;
Rest here in peace, who like a faithful steward
Repaired the church, the poor and needy cur'd.
Eternal mansions do attend the just,

To clothe with immortality their dust,

Tainted (whilst underground) with worme and rust."

That ghostly pun on the man's name, Merrett, is a fine specimen of sepulchral joking. The following, on "John Evans, Seafaringman,' is not inappropriate :

Though Boreas' blasts, and Neptune's waves,

Have toss'd me to and fro,

Yet in despight of both, by God's decree,

I harbour here below.

And since at Anchor here I lye,

With many of our Fleet,

I trust I shall set sail with they

Our General Christ to meet."

Would not "Admiral Christ" have been nearer the mark here? And then, what about the grammar?

A certain Edward Hatch, who died in 1667, we are told, in lines smacking very much of tombstone poetry, was the "darling of our age:

"The nobler parts of him that here doth lye,

In Law and Lawing and in Policie,

And with all virtues which from heaven are sent,

Doe well deserve a Golden Monument.

O cruell Death, could nothing thee assuage,

To spare with us the darling of our age?'

If this epitaph be true, we can only at this distance of time wonder and admire, and wish it were our happy lot to know a living Edward Hatch. Another, on a "Virgin blossome," requires a commentary. The name of the "Virgin blossome" was Eleanor Freeman, and she died "May the 2nd, an. 1653, aged 21," and this is her fame :

"A Virgin blossome, in her May

Of Youth and Virtues, turned to clay;
Rich earth! accomplisht with those graces
That adorne Saints for Heavenly places.
Let not Death boast his conquering power;
She'll rise a Starre, that fell a Flower."

Poor Eleanor Freeman ! it is quite clear she was too good for this "sublunary sphere."

We have often speculated on the proper way of pronouncing the name Baugh; we learned it from

an epitaph at Tewkesbury. Some very fine lines "In memory of Mary, daughter of Joseph and Anne Baugh," told us. The departed Mary is said to have been one

"Whose gladsome parents first-born joy did bring;

Whose grace and gifts did cause their hearts to sing;
Whose sickness sharp their rare ripe hopes supprest,
Whose death convey'd her graceful form to rest;
Whose rest reviv'd their joy, her vertue rare,
Fulfill'd their comfort, and discharged their care;
And parents' faith with humble Abraham laugh,
For God who gave has crown'd their blessed Baugh."

We must pause; but no Warwickshire man could hope for pardon, if he neglected to record that in Tewkesbury churchyard is buried John Hart, the sixth descendant from Shakspere, and that his wife loved him enough to inscribe this epitaph on his tomb:

:

"Here lies the only comfort of my life,

Who was the best of husbands to a wife;
Since he is not, no joy I e'er shall have,
Till laid by him within this silent grave.
Here we shall sleep, and quietly remain,

Till of God's pow'r we meet in heaven again;

Then with Christ eternally to dwell;

And until that blessed time, my love, farewell."

From the church, and the tombs, and their epitaphs, we pass into the fresh air of the bright sunny day, for a ramble in the fields. Before you turn away from the church for the last time, pause a few more moments, and take a full view of the noble building, to be a joy for you for ever. What a

S

glorious old pile it is! What a magnificent tower! And how admirably the unique and elegant pinnacles of the two turrets which flank the great archway, group with the grand central tower! Take a long look at it, so that the mind may bear away with it a complete picture of the noble house of peace, before we turn to pay our visit to the field of blood.

It is still a matter of dispute as to the exact site of the great battle of Tewkesbury. Holinshed says that Queen Margaret's forces did "fight their field in a close, even hard at the townes end, having the towne and the abbeie at their backes, and directlie before them, and upon each side of them, they were defended with cumbersome lanes, deepe ditches, and maine hedges, beside hills and dales, so as the place seemed as noisome as might be to approach unto." Tradition names Home Ground, a short mile from the town, as the place of the Queen's encampment, and Red Piece as that occupied by the troops of Edward. A small circular piece of land close by is still called "Margaret's Camp;" and a field just beyond the Windmill Hill bears the name of the "Bloody Meadow," as indicating the spot where a large number of the Queen's flying troops were cut to pieces by their victorious pursuers.

That fourth of May, 1471, was a fatal day for the Lancasterians. Poor Henry the Sixth was a prisoner in the Tower; the fatal battle of Barnet had been fought, and the King-Maker Warwick slain. The indomitable Margaret had once more taken the field. The Duke of Somerset was the leader of her forces,