he subtle process by
which, both in the natural and the moral world, qualities pass
insensibly into their contraries, and things revolve upon each other.
As, in sailing upon the orb of this planet, a voyage towards the regions
where the sun sets, conducts gradually to the quarter where we have been
accustomed to behold it come forth at its rising; and, in like manner, a
voyage towards the east, the birth-place in our imagination of the
morning, leads finally to the quarter where the sun is last seen when he
departs from our eyes; so the contemplative Soul, travelling in the
direction of mortality, advances to the country of everlasting life;
and, in like manner, may she continue to explore those cheerful tracts,
till she is brought back, for her advantage and benefit, to the land of
transitory things--of sorrow and of tears.

On a midway point, therefore, which commands the thoughts and feelings
of the two Sages whom we have represented in contrast, does the Author
of that species of composition, the laws of which it is our present
purpose to explain, take his stand. Accordingly, recurring to the
twofold desire of guarding the remains of the deceased and preserving
their memory, it may be said that a sepulchral monument is a tribute to
a man as a human being; and that an epitaph (in the ordinary meaning
attached to the word) includes this general feeling and something more;
and is a record to preserve the memory of the dead, as a tribute due to
his individual worth, for a satisfaction to the sorrowing hearts of the
survivors, and for the common benefit of the living: which record is to
be accomplished, not in a general manner, but, where it can, in _close
connection with the bodily remains of the deceased_: and these, it may
be added, among the modern nations of Europe, are deposited within, or
contiguous to, their places of worship. In ancient times, as is well
known, it was the custom to bury the dead beyond the walls of towns and
cities; and among the Greeks and Romans they were frequently interred by
the way-sides.

I could here pause with pleasure, and invite the Reader to indulge with
me in contemplation of the advantages which must have attended such a
practice. We might ruminate upon the beauty which the monuments, thus
placed, must have borrowed from the surrounding images of nature--from
the trees, the wild flowers, from a stream running perhaps within sight
or hearing, from the beaten road stretching its wea