r in little boys; and whose gesticulations and
contortions of head, hand, and body, in beating time, were not
outdone, even by Joah Bates in the commemorations of Handel! Yes,
simple and happy villagers! I remember scores of you;--how fortunately
ye had escaped the contagion of the metropolitan vices, though distant
but five miles; and how many of you have I conversed with, who, at an
adult age, had never beheld the degrading assemblage of its knaveries
and miseries!

I revelled in the melancholy pleasure of these recollections, yielding
my whole soul to that witchery of sensibility, which magnifies the
perception of being, till one of the bells was overset; when, the peal
stopping, I had leisure to reflect on the rapid advance of the day,
and on the consequent necessity of quickening my speed.

At the end of this lane I crossed a road, which I found led to
Chiswick Ferry. The opening gave increased effect to the renewed peal,
and I regretted that I could not then indulge in a nearer approach to
that beloved spot. I passed a farm-house and some neat villas, and
presently came to the unostentatious, but interestingly-ancient
structure of Barnes Church, situated on the Common, at the distance of
a quarter of a mile from the village. I essayed to enter the
church-yard to read some of the chronicles of mortality, particularly
as it invited attention by the unusual object of a display of elegant
_Roses_, which I afterwards learnt had been cultivated on the same
spot about 150 years, to indulge the conceit of a person of the name
of _Rose_, who was buried there, and left an acre of ground to the
parish to defray the expence; but I found the gate locked, and was
told it was never opened, except during service. I confess I was not
pleased with this regulation, because it appeared to sever the
affections of the living from their proper sympathy with the dead. I
have felt in the same manner in regard to the inclosed cemeteries of
the metropolis: they separate the dead too abruptly from surviving
friends and relatives. Grief seeks to indulge itself unobserved; it
desires to be unrestrained by forms and hours, and to vent itself in
perfect solitude. The afflicted wife longs to weep over the grave of
her husband; the husband to visit the grave of a beloved wife; and the
tender mother seeks the spot endeared by the remains of her child: but
they cannot submit to the formality of asking permission, or allow
their griefs to be intrud