SECTION IV. Eyam visited by the Plague 1666.- Riley Grave-Stones.— Mr. Mompesson. - Cucklet Church. UNCONNECTED with the local history of the place, Eyam is of little importance; but having been afflicted with the plague, in the year 1666, it has become an object of considerable interest. Suffering has sanctified its claim to notice, and the curious and enquiring traveller feels a melancholy pleasure in tracing out the records of the ravages made in this little village by that depopulating scourge of nations. Dr. Mead, in his narrative of the great plague in London, has noticed the circumstance of its communication to this remote part of the kingdom; and he particularly mentions its introduction into Eyam, through the medium of a box of clothes, sent to a tailor who resided there. The person who opened the box, from whence the imprisoned pestilence burst forth, was its first victim; and the whole of the family, with the solitary exception of one, shared the same fate. The disease spread rapidly, and almost every house was thinned by the contagion. The same cottage, in many instances, contained both the dying and the dead. Short indeed was the space between health and sickness; and immediate the transition from the death-bed to the tomb. Wherever symptoms of the plague appeared, so hopeless was recovery, that the dissolution of the afflicted patient was watched with anxious solicitude, that so much of the disease might be buried, and its influence destroyed. In the church-yard, on the neighbourbouring hills, and in the fields bordering the village, graves were dug ready to receive the expiring sufferers; and the earth with an unhallowed haste was closed upon them, even whilst the limbs were yet warm, and almost palpitating with life; and "O'er the friendly bier no rites were read, "No dirge slow chanted, and no pall outspread; 32 RILEY GRAVE-STONES. Such is Dr. Darwin's description of the interment of those who died of the plague in London; but here "night piled not up the naked throng," nor was darkness resorted to, to veil the unseemly sight. The open day witnessed the "frequent corse," not decently conveyed to its last home, not only unattended by friends; but uncoffined, and hurried to the grave with the precipitation of panic. The population of Eyam, at this time, was about three hundred and thirty; of whom two hundred and fifty-nine fell by the plague. Visiting this village, and traversing its environs, the "Mountain Tumulus," distinguished by the name of Riley Grave-Stones, claims particular attention. When I first beheld this little spot of ground, I came suddenly upon it from a ramble over the hills above. Its insulated appearance, and the freshness of its verdure, bedded in surrounding heath of the brightest purple, together with the hallowed purpose to which it had been appropriated, induced me to pass a serious half hour within its walls. Miss Seward has informed us that this was the burial-place of the dead when the plague raged at Eyam, and the church-yard had become too crowded to admit any more of its victims. The situation of Riley Grave-Stones is on an elevated piece of ground not half a mile from the village. A wall has been erected round the stones that remain; but many, whose resting places are not distinguished by any mark, except a gentle swell in the turf that covers them, are not included within this humble paling. I know not that I ever felt more seriously and solemnly impressed than on my visit to this place. The dreadful power of that disease, which, while it prevailed in London, appalled the whole empire, and in the following year unpeopled the village of Eyam, is here strikingly exemplified. Six headstones and one tabular monumental stone, yet remain to tell the tale of the total extinction of a whole family, with the exception of one boy, in the short space of eight days. The inscriptions, though much worn, may still be distinctly traced. The respective dates are .... Elizabeth Hancock, died August 3, 1666. ...... 4, 7, ..... 7, .... 7, ..... 9, 10, SILVER PLATING AT SHEFFIELD. 33 What a mournful memorial of domestic calamity do these few stones and their brief inscriptions present! On the four sides of the tomb, which contains the ashes of the father of this unhappy family of sufferers, are the words - Horam Nescitis, Orate, Vigilate. As an inhabitant of the town of Sheffield, and interested in whatever is connected with its prosperity, I trust the following short digression from this afflicting subject may be forgiven. About the year 1750 a Mr. Joseph Hancock, a descendant of this family, discovered, or rather recovered, the art of covering ingots of copper with plate silver, which were afterwards flatted under rollers, and manufactured into a variety of articles in imitation of wrought silver plate. This business he introduced into the town of Sheffield, where it has since become one of its most important and lucrative concerns. Birmingham has attempted to rival this elegant manufacture, but, with the exception of the Soho establishment, its pretensions are humble. I have not hesitated to use the term recovered, as applicable to the art of which Mr. Joseph Hancock has been considered the founder, for I am well aware that the practice of covering one metal with another more precious is of great antiquity. That articles plated with silver, particularly candlesticks, were in use during the reign of Henry the Seventh, can hardly admit of controversy. A specimen of the work of that period of time was lately taken out of Lady Idonea Percy's Monument, in Beverley Cathedral: a circumstance of itself sufficient to establish the correctness of the opinion here expressed. Some few years ago, when fewer restraints were imposed on commercial pursuits, nearly five thousand of the inhabitants of the town of Sheffield derived employment and support from a manufacture recently brought into existence by a branch of the unfortunate family of whose rapid and almost total extinction Riley Grave Stones are the melancholy record. We are informed by Miss Seward, that, nearly a century after the plague had thus afflicted Eyam, five of the villagers employed in the Summer of 1757, in digging near Riley Grave Stones, found some linen or woollen cloth not entirely consumed, and that even at this distant period of time "the subtle, unextinguished, though much abated power of the most dreadful of all diseases, awakened from the dust in which it so long had slumbered." She adds, "the men all sickened of a putrid fever, and three of the five died; the disorder was contagious, and proved mortal to numbers of the inhabitants of Eyam," 34 DESTRUCTION OF FUNERAL MEMORIALS. From this account it appears that the very ghost of this terrible pest, rising from the tomb, gave awful proof of its former malignancy, after the lapse of a century. Respectable as the authority is on which this singular fact rests, its accuracy is doubtful. The bare mention of a circumstance so very extraordinary, naturally excites enquiry, and after all I have heard upon the subject, I am inclined to think that Miss Seward has been mistaken in point of fact. Nor is it more correct that a particular place was appropriated to the burial of the dead, during the ravages of the plague. A promiscuous grave, dug hastily in the nearest convenient place to the dwelling of the deceased, would more probably, be the receptacle of his remains, and the many stones yet to be found in the fields adjoining Eyam, with the dreadful year 1666 inscribed upon them, may determine a question now scarcely worth agitating. It must, however, be admitted that the place known by the name of Riley Grave Stones, appears to have been more generally resorted to than any other, on this mournful occasion. A few years ago a small plot of ground, immediately contiguous to the village, contained many of these memorials; now only one is to be found within it; the others have been removed by the sacrilegious hands of some of the inhabitants. As materials for the purposes of building, they lay convenient for use; and one man has floored his house, and another his barn, with the very stones that told the story of the calamities of Eyam. The dates on those melancholy tablets of mortality, wherever I have observed them, are August and September, but chiefly August, which, probably, being the hottest month in the year, proved the most fatal. Every thing connected with this awful contagion has, even at this remote period, a powerful and affecting interest; and the traveller, anxious to trace out its history, will find it perpetuated in the fields that surround the village of Eyam in characters too obvious to be misunderstood. Riley Grave Stones, Cucklet Church, and the tomb of Mrs. Mompesson, the impressive memorandums of this desolating scourge, are the last places in the neighbourhood of Eyam that should have suffered violation; but even these have not escaped. Riley Grave Stones: alas! the busy hand of agriculture has nearly obliterated this part of the record, and corn now waves over the charnel-house of the dead. The stones, agreeably to the custom once prevailing here, were originally, as I have been informed, laid horizontally upon the sod that covered the re THE REV. MR. MOMPESSON. 35 mains of the departed: but this sacred spot, or rather this spot which ought to have been regarded as sacred, being included within the operation of an enclosure act, they have been placed in a perpendicular position, and the plough has passed around them. May we not enquire, why was this permitted? and why did not the inhabitants of Eyam preserve this depository of the dead from being thus rudely violated by the living? Mr. Bird, a gentleman of Eyam, has lately possessed himself of this interesting plot of ground, and, for the purpose of restoring and preserving to it that character of sacredness which it never should have lost, he has planted a few fir trees within the walls that now enclose Riley Grave Stones. When I last saw them they had lost their leafy honours, and their branches were withered; a circumstance which aggravated the dreariness of the scene, and conspired to impress more forcibly upon the mind the images of death and decay. Mr. Mompesson, who held the living of Eyam during the ravages of the plague, was eminently successful in preventing the spread of the disease to the surrounding country. The salutary measures that he adopted, and the enthusiastic affection with which they were carried into fulfilment, were all attended with the happiest results. He was the priest, the physician, and the legislator of a community of sufferers; and the bond by which they were connected, had a melancholy influence over the minds of his parishioners. His will, nay even his wish but half expressed, had the force and effect of a legislative enactment; and even at a time, and under circumstances, when men usually listen to the suggestions of personal safety only, he was regarded with reverence and obeyed with alacrity. He represented to the inhabitants the consequence of leaving their homes, and communicating to others the pestilent malady with which they were visited, and the little probability of escaping the contagion by flight. His character and example, combined with his authority, drew a circle round the village of Eyam which none attempted to pass, even though to remain within it was to hazard almost inevitable death. At his suggestion an arrangement was made, by which supplies of food, and every thing necessary to mitigate the horrors of the disease, were deposited, from whence they were regularly removed by some of the villagers to whom this task was assigned. The Earl of Devonshire was at this time at Chatsworth, where, undeterred by the dread of the plague, he remained during the whole of |