“In this square, taking its name from the division of Finsbury,” said Dashall, “reside many of the merchants and other eminent citizens of London; and here, in the decorations, internally, of their respective mansions, they vie with the more courtly residents westward, and exceed them generally in the quietude of domestic enjoyment.”
Renewing their walk along the City Road, the gate of Bunhill Fields burying-ground standing conveniently open, “Let us step in,” said Dashall,—“this is the most extensive depository of the dead in London, and as every grave almost is surmounted by a tombstone, we cannot fail in acquiring an impressive memento mori.”
While examining a monumental record, of which there appeared a countless number, their attention was withdrawn from the dead, and attracted by the living. An elderly personage, arrayed in a rusty suit of sables, with an ink bottle dangling from one of the buttons of his coat, was intently employed in copying a long, yet well written inscription, to the memory of Patrick Colquhon, L.L.D., author of a Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis, and several other works of great public utility. Having accomplished his object, the stranger saluted Dashall and Tallyho in a manner so courteous as seemingly to invite conversation.
“You have chosen, Sir,” observed Mr. Dashall, “rather a sombre cast of amusement.”
“Otherwise occupation,” said the stranger, “from which I derive subsistence. Amidst the endless varieties of Real Life in London, I am an Epitaph-Collector, favoured by my friends with the appellation of Old Mortality, furnished them by the voluminous writer and meteor of the north, Sir Walter Scott.”
“Do you collect,” asked Tallyho, “with the view of publishing on your own account?”
“No, Sir,—I really am not in possession of the means wherewith to embark on so hazardous a speculation. I am thus employed by an eccentric, yet very worthy gentleman, of large property, who ambitious of transmitting his name to posterity, means to favour the world with a more multitudinous collection of epitaphs than has hitherto appeared in any age or nation;—his prospectus states “Monumental Gleanings, in twenty-five quarto volumes!”
“Astonishing!” exclaimed Dashall,—“Can it be possible that he ever will be able to accomplish so vast an undertaking?”
“And if he does,” said Tallyho, “can it be possible that any person will be found to read a production of such magnitude, and on such a subject?”
“That to him is a matter of indifference,” said Old Mortality,—“he means to defray the entire charges, and the object of publication effected, will rest satisfied with the approbation of the discerning few, leaving encomium from the multitude to authors or compilers more susceptible of flattery,—