The New Hampshire Gazette

YORICK's DEATH.

A few hours before Yorick breathed his last, Eugenius stepped in, with an intent to take his last sight and farewell of him. Upon his drawing Yorick's curtain, and asking how he felt himself, Yorick, looking up in his face, took hold of his hand, and, after thanking him for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it was their fate to meet hereafter, he would thank him again and again; he told him, he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip forever.—I hope not, answered Eugenius, with tears trickling down his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke,—I hope not, Yorick, said he.—Yorick replied, with a look up, and a gentle squeeze of Eugenius's hand,—and that was all, but it cut Eugenius to his heart.—Come, come, Yorick, quoth Eugenius, wiping his eyes, and summoning up the man within him,—my dear lad, be comforted,—let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this crisis when thou most wantest them;—who knows what resources are in store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee?—Yorick laid his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head; for—my part, continued Eugenius, crying bitterly as he uttered the words,—I declare, I know not, Yorick, how to part with thee; and would gladly flatter my hopes, added Eugenius, cheering up his voice, that there is still enough of thee left to make a bishop,—and that I may live to see it.—I beseech thee, Eugenius, quoth Yorick, taking off his night-cap as well as he could with his left hand,—his right being still grasped close in that of Eugenius,—I beseech thee to take a view of my head.—I see nothing that ails it, replied Eugenius. Then, alas! my friend, said Yorick, let me tell you, that it is so bruised and mis-shapen with the blows which have been so unhandsomely given me in the dark, that I might say with Sancho Panca, that should I recover, and "mitres thereupon be offered to rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit it." Yorick's last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips, ready to depart as he uttered this; yet still it was uttered with something of a Cervantic tone,—and as he spoke it, Eugenius could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes; faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, which (as Shakespeare said of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar! Eugenius was convinced from this, that the heart of his friend was broke: he squeezed his hand,—and then walked softly out of the room, weeping as he walked. Yorick followed Eugenius with his eyes to the door,—he then closed them—and never opened them more.

He lies buried in a corner of his church-yard, under a plain marble slab, which his friend Eugenius, by leave of his executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than these three words of inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy—

Alas, poor YORICK!

Ten times a day has Yorick's ghost the consolation to hear his monumental inscription read over with such a variety of plaintive tones, as denote a general pity and esteem for him;—a foot way crossing the church-yard close by his grave,—not a passenger goes by, without stopping to cast a look upon it,—and sighing as he walks on,

Alas, poor YORICK!

STERNE.