Epitaph from Stalbridge.—The following epitaph from the churchyard of Stalbridge, Dorsetshire, may perhaps be thought worthy of preservation, if it be not a hackneyed one:
"So fond, so young, so gentle, so sincere,
So loved, so early lost, may claim a tear:
Yet mourn not, if the life, resumed by heaven,
Was spent to ev'ry end for which 'twas given.
Could he too soon escape this world of sin?
Or could eternal life too soon begin?
Then cease his death too fondly to deplore,
What could the longest life have added more?"
C. W. B.