Among these is one on the tomb of a smith, which on account of its singularity, I here copy and send you.
“My sledge and anvil he declined,
My bellows too have lost their wind;
My fire’s extinct, my forge decayed,
My coals are spent, my iron’s gone,
My nails are drove: my work is done.”
Many of these epitaphs closed with the following quaint rhymes:
“Physicians were in vain;
God knew the best;
So here I rest.”
In the body of the church I saw a marble monument of a son of the celebrated Dr. Wallis, with the following simple and affecting inscription:
“The same good sense which qualified him for every public employment
Taught him to spend his life here in retirement.”
All the farmers whom I saw there were dressed, not as ours are, in coarse frocks, but with some taste, in fine good cloth; and were to be distinguished from the people of the town, not so much by their dress, as by the greater simplicity and modesty of their behaviour.
Some soldiers, who probably were ambitious of being thought to know the world, and to be wits, joined me, as I was looking at the church, and seemed to be quite ashamed of it, as they said it was only a very miserable church. On which I took the liberty to inform them, that no church could be miserable which contained orderly and good people.
I stayed here to dinner. In the afternoon there was no service; the young people however, went to church, and there sang some few psalms; others of the congregation were also present. This was conducted with so much decorum, that I could hardly help considering it as actually a kind of church-service. I stayed with great pleasure till this meeting also was over.
I seemed indeed to be enchanted, and as if I could not leave this village. Three times did I get off, in order to go on farther, and as often returned, more than half resolved to spend a week, or more, in my favourite Nettlebed.