would have cheerfully consigned their own blood connexions to Don Pedro or the Dey of Algiers, while living, will make it a matter of business to follow any body's corpse to its last home: and there is no religion, sentimentality, or poetical superstition in their so doing. It is a mere way they have. Therefore there was no lack of people to make up a procession, either at the funeral of Mrs. Tompkins or of her husband. There was a group of rather ragged looking people, men, women, and children, who remained, after the crowd had gone away, near the graves on both occasions. They had reason to cry, as they honestly did, for the loss of those who had been kind to them. It was a strange circumstance, but it was actually true, that when Mrs. Wilkins, under Mr. Felburgh's inspection, came to settle up what was due for the funeral expenses of Mr. Tompkins, and to herself, they found exactly the amount required, and neither a cent more nor less. What papers he might have burnt after his wife's death I know not; but the lady and gentleman above mentioned, who acted as his legatees, did not find the smallest memorandum or scrap of paper left by him. The wardrobe of both husband and wife was not extensive, and the trunks containing their wearing apparel were preserved inviolate by the respectable Mrs. Wilkins. She has since died. Mr. Felburgh went shortly after Mr. Tompkins' death to Denmark. If any private revelations were made to him, he has never divulged them, and I know he never will. When I saw him in Copenhagen in the summer of 1826, I did not think he looked like a man who was to stay much longer in this world of care. He had not any thing to trouble him particularly, that I know of; except that he had nobody to inherit his property, and that was not much. There was another strange circumstance, which I must not pass over. A few weeks after Mr. Tompkins was buried, a plain tombstone, shaped exactly like that which had been erected by his order over his wife, appeared at the head of his grave; and on it was inscribed-" HUGH TOMPKINS: Died in the 58th year of his age." Who put it up no one could tell, nor is it known to this day. The burying ground is as forlorn a place as can well be imagined. There is only a ragged fence around it, and nothing but rank common grass, dandelions, and white weed grow in it.— There is nothing picturesque in or about it; and a Paris belle would rather never die at all, than be stowed into such vile sepulchral accommodations. These are all the facts in my knowledge, relating to my hero and heroine, as to whom, and whose resources, curiosity is yet so lively, in the village which I have referred to, but not named, in order to avoid scandal. "The annals of the human race, Than this-there lived a Man" and his wife, whose name was Tompkins. I superscribe my story " A Simple Tale," and "simply," as Sir Andrew Aguecheek has it, I believe it is such. It can possess no interest save from the mystery which hangs over its subjects; no pathos, except from their loneliness on the earth, into whose common bosom they have been consigned, leaving only such frail memorials behind them as their laconic epitaphs and this evanescent legend. THE GREEK BOY. (See Frontispiece.) GONE are the glorious Greeks of old, Their bones are mingled with the mould, The forms they hewed from living stone, Yet fresh the myrtles there-the springs Gush brightly as of yore; Flowers blossom from the dust of kings, There nature moulds as nobly now, Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek, Thy ears have drunk the woodland strains Now is thy nation free-though late- And Greece decayed, dethroned, doth see A shoot of that old vine that made The nations silent in its shade. |