While in the militia, Wilson opposed himself to seven beggars, or trampers, of “Younghusband’s gang,” who were insulting a poor man. In this fray the bard got two black eyes; “but,” added the narrator, “no matter—he got ’em in a good cause.”
July 22, Sunday. Attended church. After service sketched the font, which appeared to be of great antiquity. Near the altar is the following inscription on a beautiful marble monument, designed and executed by Webster of Kendal: the poetry is by Wordsworth.
In the Burial Ground
Of this church are deposited the remains of Jemima Ann Deborah, second Daughter of Sir Egerton Brydges, of Denton Court, Kent, Bart. She departed this life, at the Ivy Cottage, Rydal, May 25, 1822, Aged 28 years. This memorial is erected by her husband, Edward Quillinan.
These vales were saddened with no common gloom
When good Jemima perished in her bloom;
When, such the awful will of Heaven, she died
By flames breathed on her from her own fire-side.
On earth we dimly see, and but in part
We know, yet faith sustains the sorrowing heart:
And she the pure, the patient, and the meek,
Might have fit epitaph could feelings speak:
If words could tell, and monuments record,
How treasures lost are inwardly deplored,
No name by grief’s fond eloquence adorned,
More than Jemima’s would be praised and mourned
The tender virtues of her blameless life,
Bright in the daughter, brighter in the wife;
And in the cheerful mother brightest shone—
That light hath past away—the will of God be done.
From the church-yard I transcribed the following inscriptions:—
Here lieth
The body of Thomas, the son of William and Mary [II-281,
II-282] Wordsworth. He died on the 1st of December, A. D. 1812.
Six months to six years added, he remained
Upon this sinful earth by sin unstained.
O blessed Lord, whose mercy then removed
A child whom every eye that looked on loved,
Support us, teach us calmly to resign
What we possessed, and now is wholly thine.