He stood by Mompesson and did his duty quite as nobly; and some years
afterwards, when some small-minded people appealed to the Duke of
Devonshire as Lord Lieutenant of the county to have Stanley removed, he
indignantly refused and rebuked the petitioners very strongly.
William and Mary Howitt wrote a long poem entitled "The Desolation of
Hyam," and described the village as--
Among the verdant mountains of the Peak
There lies a quiet hamlet, where the slope
Of pleasant uplands wards the north winds bleak:
Below, wild dells romantic pathways ope:
Around, above it, spreads a shadowy cope
Of forest trees: flower, foliage and clear rill
Wave from the cliffs, or down ravines elope:
It seems a place charmed from the power of ill
By sainted words of old:--so lovely, lone and still.
William Wood wrote the _Plague Chronicle_, and on his gravestone was
inscribed:
Men like visions are;
Time all doth claim;
He lives who dies and leaves
A lasting name.
We had often read the wonderful epitaphs on the tombs of the nobility,
but we had been warned that in former times these were often written by
professional men who were well paid for their services, and the greater
the number of heavenly virtues attributed to the deceased, the greater
of course the fee; but those written by the poetical curate of Eyam were
beyond suspicion if we may judge from the couplet he wrote to be placed
on the gravestone of a parishioner:
Since life is short and death is always nigh,
On many years to come do not rely.
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