"In that great maze of books I sighed and said,-- It is a grave-yard, and each tome a tombe; Shrouded in hempen rags, behold the dead, Coffined and ranged in crypts of dismal gloom, Food for the worm and redolent of mold, Traced with brief epitaph in tarnished gold-- Ah, golden lettered hope!--ah, dolorous doom! Yet mid the common death, where all is cold, And mildewed pride in desolation dwells, A few great immortalities of old Stand brightly forth--not tombes but living shrines, Where from high sainte or martyr virtue wells, Which on the living yet work miracles, Spreading a relic wealth richer than golden mines. "J.M. 1627." Attached to it, it will be seen, are the initials J.M. and the date 1627. Is it possible that this may be an early and neglected sonnet of Milton? and yet, could Milton have seriously perpetrated the pun in the second line? C. HOWARD KENYON. * * * * * BURYING IN CHURCH WALLS. (Vol. ii., p. 513.) MR. W. DURRANT COOPER has mentioned some instances of burials in the walls of churches; it is not however clear whether in these the monument, or coffin lid, is in the inside or the outside of the wall. Stone coffin lids, with and without effigies, are very frequently found placed under low arches hollowed in the wall in the _interior_ of the church: tombs placed in the _exterior_ of the wall are much less common; and the singularity of their position, leads one to look for some peculiar reason for it. Tradition often accounts for it by such stories as those mentioned by MR. COOPER. Such is the case with a handsome canopied tomb (I think with an effigy) on the south side of the choir of the cathedral of Lichfield, where we are told that the person interred died under censure of the church. Other instances which I have noticed, are, at-- Little Casterton, Rutland.--Tomb, with an effigy, apparently of an ecclesiastic, but much decayed, of the 13th century, in the south wall of the nave. Warbleton, Sussex.--Circular arch over a sort of altar tomb, no effigy remains. Probably of the earlier half of the 13th century. In the south wall of chancel. Basildon, Berks.--A very elegant canopy. There was once an effigy, now destroyed, with the tomb, and a door made under the canopy! About 1300. In the south wall of the chancel. Bridewater, Somerset.--Two arches, with foliations, over effigies between them, a door leading, down to a crypt. The effigies are too much decayed to enable a decided opinion to be formed as to sex or station. In the north wall of north transept. Date probably between 1270 and 1300. St. Stephen's, Vienna.--A fine tomb, with canopy and effigy, by the side of the south door of the nave. Probably of the 14th century.