“My William!” faint and plaintive was the cry,
And chill the hand which fell upon his breast,
“My dearest William, wake thee! Oh! that I
With such sad tidings should dispel thy rest.
But death is here!” With agony possessed,
He snatched a light—he saw—he reeled—he fell.
There, in its deadliest form prevailed the pest.
Too well he knew the fatal signs—too well:
A moment—and to life—to happiness farewell!
The good and beautiful woman, Catherine Mompesson, expired in her husband’s arms, in the twenty-seventh year of her age. Her tomb is near an ancient cross in the church-yard of Eyam. It is represented in the vignette to the “Desolation of Eyam;” and by means of that print the present [engraving] is laid before the reader of this article.
Mr. Mompesson was presented to the rectory of Eakring, near Ollerton, in Nottinghamshire, and he quitted the fatal scene. On his going, however, to take possession of his living, the people, naturally impressed with the terrors of the plague, in the very cloud and whirlwind of which he had so lately walked, declined admitting him into the village. A hut therefore was erected for him in Rufford Park, where he abode till the fear subsided.
To this gift were added prebends in York and Southwell, and the offer of the deanery of Lincoln. But the good man, with an admirable disinterestedness, declined this last substantial honour, and transferred his influence to his friend, the witty and learned Dr. Fuller, author of “the Worthies of England,” &c. who accordingly obtained it. The wish, which he expressed in one of his letters, that “his children might be good rather than great,” sprang from a living sentiment of his heart. He had tasted the felicity and the bitterness of this world; he had seen its sunshine swallowed up in the shadow of death; and earth had nothing to offer him like the blessedness of a retirement, in which he might prepare himself for a more permanent state of existence.
A brass plate, with a Latin inscription, records his death in this pleasant seclusion, March 7, 1708, in the seventieth year of his age.
Bright shines the sun upon the white walls wreathed[385]
With flowers and leafy branches, in that lone
And sheltered quiet, where the mourner breathed
His future anguish; pleasant there the tone
Of bees; the shadows, o’er still waters thrown,
From the broad plane-tree; in the grey church nigh,
And near that altar where his faith was known,
Humble as his own spirit we descry
The record which denotes where sacred ashes lie.
And be it so for ever;—it is glory.
Tombs, mausoleums, scrolls, whose weak intent
Time laughs to scorn, as he blots out their story,
Are not the mighty spirit’s monument.
He builds with the world’s wonder—his cement
Is the world’s love;—he lamps his beamy shrine,
With fires of the soul’s essence, which, unspent,
Burn on for ever;—such bright tomb is thine,
Great patriot, and so rests thy peerless Catherine.
So ends the poem of “The Desolation of Eyam.” Its authors, in one of the notes, relate as follows:—
There are extant three letters written by W. Mompesson, from the nearly depopulated place, at a time when his wife had been snatched from him by the plague, and he considered his own fate inevitable. In the whole range of literature, we know of nothing more pathetic than these letters. Our limits do not allow us to give them entire, but we cannot forbear making a few extracts. In one, he says,
“The condition of this place has been so sad, that I persuade myself it did exceed all history and example. I may truly say that our town has become a Golgotha—the place of a skull; and, had there not been a small remnant of us left, we had been as Sodom and Gomorrah. My ears never heard such doleful lamentations, and my eyes never beheld such ghastly spectacles. Here have been seventy-six families visited in my parish, out of which two hundred and fifty-nine persons died! Now, blessed be God—all our fears are over: for none have died of the infection since the eleventh of October; and all the pest-houses have been long empty. I intend (God willing) to spend most of this week in seeing all the woollen clothes fumed and purified, as well for the satisfaction, as for the safety of the country.”