—————Bursting through that woody screen
What vision of strange aspect met his eyes!
In that fantastic temple’s porch was seen
The youthful pastor ——————
————————No sabbath sound
Came from the village;—no rejoicing bells
Were heard; no groups of strolling youth were found,
Nor lovers loitering on the distant fells,
No laugh, no shout of infancy, which tells
Where radiant health and happiness repair;
But silence, such as with the lifeless dwells.
The Desolation of Eyam.
A plate in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” of September, 1801, presents the [above view], taken about three years before, accompanied by a remark from Mr. Urban’s correspondent, that it was “at that time an exact resemblance of the perforated rock near the village of Eyam, in which the pious and worthy Mr. Mompesson, the rector, punctually performed the duties of his office to the distressed inhabitants during the time of the plague in that village.”
Here it may be well to observe, in the expressive language of “William and Mary Howitt,” that “what a cordon of soldiers could not have accomplished was effected by the wisdom and love of one man. This measure was the salvation of the country. The plague, which would most probably have spread from place to place, may be said to have been hemmed in, and, in a dreadful and desolating struggle, destroyed and buried with its victims.”
William Mompesson exercised a power greater than legislators have yet attained. He had found the great secret of government. He ruled his flock by the Law of Kindness.
*
In the summer, 1757, five cottagers were digging on the heathy mountain above Eyam, which was the place of graves after the church-yard became a too narrow repository. Those men came to something which had the appearance of having once been linen. Conscious of their situation, they instantly buried it again. In a few days they all sickened of a putrid fever, and three of the five died. The disorder was contagious, and proved mortal to numbers of the inhabitants.
[383] Vol. lxxi. p. 300.