The following EPITAPH on the Monument of my Kinswoman was written at the Request of hér Hulband.

WITHIN the Burial-Vault near this Marble, lieth

the Body of PENELOPE, youngest Daughter (and Coheir with her. Sister ELIZABETH) to ROBERT. Philips of Newton-Regis, in the County of Warwick, Esquire. She died in her Six and Thirtieth. Year, on the 25th Day of January, 1726.

LET THIS INSCRIPTION,
(Appealing yet to testimonies manifold)

Recall to every surviving witness,
And, for ensample, record to pofterity, 4

Her endowments,
Whether owing to the indulgency of nature,,,

Or to the assiduous lesions of education,
Or to the filent admonitions of reflection. 8

To her parents, husband, children,
In no care, no duty, no affection,

Was she wanting,
Receiving, deserving, winning

From them respectively,

Equal endearinents.
Of countenance and of disposition,,
Open, chearful, modeft;

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Of

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Of behaviour, humble, courteous, easy;

Of speech, affable, free, discreet;
In civilities, punctual, sincere, and elegant;
Prone to offices of kindness and good will;

To enmity a stranger;
Forward, earneft, impatient,

To succour the distress’d,
To comfort the afflicted ;

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Solicitous for the poor,
And rich in store of alms :

Whereby she became
The delight, the love, the blessing, of all. 28

In her houshold flourished
Chearfulness, due order, thrift, and plenty.

In the closet retired,

In the temple public.
Morning and evening did she worship;

By instruction, by example,
Sedulous to nurture her children in godliness:

So prevalent her love to them,

Visited with that fore disease,
Which too often kills or blites

The mother's fondest hopes,
That (regardless of self-preservation) 40

In piously watching over their lives
She, catching the infection, lost her own,

Triumphing, through resignation,

Over fickness, pain, anguish, agony, 44 And (encompassed with tears and lamentations) Expiring in the fervour of prayer,

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Tö'the MEMORY, ever dear and precious, of his most

affectionate, most beloved, and most deserving Wife, is this Monument raised by HENRY VERNON, of Hilton, in the County of Stafford, Esquire : to him the bore five Sons and two Daughters, all surviving, save Elizabeth ; who dying, in her second Year, of the Small-Pox, some few Days before, resteth by her Mother.

THE FAB LE OF THUL E,

UN FINISH E D.

FA
AR northward as the Dane extends his sway,

Where the sun glances but a floping ray; :
Beneath the sharpest rigour of the skies,
Disdainful Thule’s wintery island lies.
Unhappy maid! thy tale, forgotten long,
Shall virgins learn from

iny

instructive song,
And every youth, who lingers in despair,
By thy example warn the cruel fair.

In Cyprus, sacred to the queen of love,
(Where stands her temple, and her myrtle grove,)
Was Thule born, uncertain how: 'tis fàid
Once Venus won Adonis to her bed,
And pregnant grew, the birth to chance aflign'd
In wools, and foster'd by the feather'd kind.
With flowers fome strew the helpless orphan round,
With downy moss some spread the carpet ground, 16

Some

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Some ripen'd fruits, fome fragrant honey, bring;
And some fetch water from the running fpring;
While others warble from the boughs, to cheer
Their infant-charge, and tune her tender ear.
Soon as the fun forfakes the evening skies,
And hid in shades the gloomy foreft lies,
The nightingales their tuneful vigils keep,
And lull her, with their gentler strains, to sleep.

This the prevailing rumour : as she grew,
No dubious tokens spoke the rumour true.
In every forming feature might be seen
Some bright resemblance of the Cyprian queen : 28
Nor was it hard the hunter youth to trace,
In all her early passion of the chace :
And when, on springing flowers reclin'd, me sung,
The birds upon the bending branches hung, 32
While, warbling, me express’d their various strains,
And, at a distance, charm’d the listening fwains:
So sweet her voice resounding through the wood,
They thought the Nymph fome Syren from the flood.

Half human thus by lineage, half divine, In forests did the lonely beauty thine, Like woodland flowers, which paint the desert glades, And waste their sweets in unfrequented thades, No human face she saw, and rarely seen By human face : a solitary queen She rul'd, and rang’d, her shady empire round. No horn the filent huntress bears ; no hound, 44 With noisy cry, difturbs her folemn chace, Swift, as the bounding stag, the wings her pace;

And,

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And, bend whene'er she will her ebon bow,
A speedy death arrests the flying foe.

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The bow the hunting goddess first fupply'd,
And ivory quiver cross her shoulders ty’d.

Th’imperious queen of heaven, with jealous eyes,
Beholds the blooming virgin from the skies,

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At once admires, and dreads her growing charms,
And sees the god already in her arms :
In vain, she finds, her bitter tongue reproves
His broken vows, and his clandestine loves :
Jove still continues frail : and all in vain.
Does Thule in obscurest fades remain,
While Maja's son, the thunderer's winged spy,
Informs him where the lurking beauties lie.
What fure expedient then shall Juno find,
To calın her fears, and ease her boding mind ?
Delays to jealous minds a torment prove ;
And Thule ripens every day for love.

She mounts her car, and shakes the filken reins;
The harness'd peacocks spread their painted trains,
And Imooth their glofly necks against the sun :
The wheels along the level azure run.

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Ealtward the goddess guides her gaudy team,
And perfects, as the rides, her forming scheme.

The various orbs now pass’d, adown the steep
Of heaven the chariot whirls, and plunges deep

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In fleecy clouds, which o'er the mid-land main
Hang pois’d in air, to bless the illes with rain :
And here the panting birds repose a while :
Nor so their queen; the gains the Cyprian ide, 76

Ву

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