Vincent Bourne had that passionate sympathy with and delight in youth that is the surest testimony to a heart that does not grow old. The pretty ways and natural gestures of childhood pleased him. He was fond of his boys, and allowed that fondness to be evident, at a time when brow-beating and insolent severity were too much the fashion. In his epitaphs it is curious to note how many deal with the young, and touch on the immemorial fragrance of early death with a peculiar pathos. There is an epitaph on a Westminster boy of twelve years old, where he most touchingly alludes to the thought that he died both beautiful and innocent; and an epitaph on a little girl who, he said in quaint phrase, had the modest red of roses and the pure whiteness of lilies in her face. Again the inscription to the memory of the young Earl of Warwick, who died at the age of twenty-four, is full of delicate beauty; but I will give in full what seems to me the sweetest of all. It is printed among the authentic epitaphs, but it is, I imagine, purely fanciful. EPITAPHIUM IN SEPTEM ANNORUM PUELLULAM. Quam suavis mea Chloris, et venusta, Vitæ quam fuerit brevis, monebunt Hic circum violæ rosæque fusæ: Quarum purpura, vix aperta, clausa est. Sed nec dura nimis vocare fata, Nec fas est nimium queri caducæ De formæ brevitate, quam rependit Aeterni diuturnitas odoris. * * * My pretty Chloris--ah, how sweet The roses o'er your head shall show; The violets, strewn above your feet How brief the life that sleeps below. We must not chide the grudging fates. Nor say how short a lot was thine, For, ah, how amply compensates The eternal fragrance of thy shrine. I subjoin to these a couple of epigrams which give a good idea of the natural and solemn way in which he approaches death, as an event not necessarily of a gloomy and forbidding character, but as tending to draw out and develop an intimate and regretful hope in the survivors. There is nothing austere about his philosophy; it puts aside pompous and formal consolations, and goes right to the heart of the matter, with a child-like simplicity. The first deals with the Pyramids, the second with an incident, real or fancied, connected with the burial of Queen Mary at Westminster. PYRAMIS. Pyramidum sumptus, ad cœlum et sidera ducti, Quid dignum tanta mole, quid intus habent? Ah! nihil intus habent, nisi nigrum informe cadaver; Durata in saxum est cui medicata caro. Ergone porrigitur monumentum in jugera tota! Ergo tot annorum, tot manuumque labor! Integra sit morum tibi vita: hæc pyramis esto, Et poterunt tumulo sex satis esse pedes. * * *