On the south side of the Communion-table, I was so well pleased with some verses lately placed on a marble tablet, to record the virtues of the Viscountess Sidmouth, who died June 23, 1811, that I could not refrain from copying them. The Viscount and his family have a pew in the church, and, I am told, are constant attendants at the morning-service on Sundays.
Not that to mortal eyes thy spotless life
Shew’d the best form of parent, child, and wife;
Not that thy vital current seem’d to glide,
Clear and unmix’d, through the world’s troublous tide;
That grace and beauty, form’d each heart to win,
Seem’d but the casket to the gem within:
Not hence the fond presumption of our love,
Which lifts the spirit to the Saints above;
But that pure Piety’s consoling pow’r