Things to be remembered in daily life : with personal experiences and recollections / by John Timbs.

  • Timbs, John, 1801-1875.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Things to be remembered in daily life : with personal experiences and recollections / by John Timbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    ginally been the summer retirement of this mitred lord: it is of monastic character, but a more ornate capital has been added, which bears the date of 1688; it has the following inscription by the venerable Canon • To count the brief and unreturmng hours, This Sun-dial was placed among the flowers. Which came forth in their beauty—smiled and died, Blooming and withering round its ancient side. Mortal, thy day is passing—see that Flower, And think upon the Shadow and the Hour. From beneath a venerable yew, which has seen the per- secution of the loyal English clergy, you look into the adjoin- ing churchyard of Bremhill, on an old Sun-dial, once a cross. Bowles tells us : The cross was found broken at its foot, probably by the country iconoclasts of the day. I have brought the interesting fragment again into light, and placed it conspicuously opposite to an old Scotch fir in the church- yard, which I think it not unlikely was planted by Town- son on his restoration. The accumulation of the soil of centuries had covered an ascent of four steps at the bottom of this record of silent hours. These steps have been worn in places, from the act of frequent prostration or kneeling by the forefathers of the hamlet, perhaps before the church existed. Upon this old dial Bowles wrote one of his most touching poems, of which these are the opening verses : So passes silent o'er the dead thy shade, Brief Time ! and hour by hour, and day by day, The pleasing pictures of the present fade. And like a summer-vapo\ir steal away. And have not they, who here forgotten lie (Say, hoaiy chronicler of ages past). Once more th}' shadow with delighted eye. Nor thought it fled,—how certain and how fast ? Since thou hast stood, and thus thy vigil kept. Noting each hour, o'er mould'ring stones beneath, The Pastor and his flock alike have slept, And dust to dust proclaim'd the stride of death. Any thing that reminds us of the lapse of time should remind us also of the right employment of time in doing whatever business is required to be done. A similar lesson is solemnly conveyed in the Scripture motto to a Sun-dial: The night cometh, when no man can work. Another solemn injunction is conveyed in the motto to a Sun-dial erected by Bishop Copleston in a village near