=On seeing a Tomb adorned with Angels weeping.=
Though sculptors, with mistaken art, Place weeping Angels round the tomb; Yet, when the good and great depart, These shout to bear their conquerors home.
Glad they survey their labours o'er, And hail them to their native skies; Attend their passage to the shore, And with their mounting spirits rise.
Britain may mourn her Patriot dead, And pour her sorrows o'er his dust: But streaming eyes, and drooping head, Ill suit those guardians of the just.
Parents may shed a tender tear, And friends indulge a parting groan; If these in mimic form appear, Such pious grief becomes the stone.
But if the wounded marble bear Celestial forms to grace the urn, Let triumph in their eyes appear, Nor dare to make an angel mourn.
_Origin of the word_ DUN.--Dunny, in the provincial dialect of several countries, signifies deaf: to dun, then, perhaps may mean, to deafen with importunate demands. Some derive it from the word _donnez_, which signifies _give_; but the true original meaning of the word owes its birth to one Joe Dun, a famous bailiff of the town of Lincoln, so extremely active and so dexterous in his business, that it became a proverb, when a man refused to pay, "Why do you not _dun_ him?" that is, Why do not you set _Dun_ to arrest him?--Hence it became a cant-word, and is now as old as since the days of Henry VII. Dun was also the general name of hangman, before that of Jack-ketch.
And presently a halter got, Made of the best strong hempen tear, And e'er a cat could lick her ear, Had tied it up with as much art, As Dun himself could do for 's heart.
It is curious to observe that _Dun_, who, as we said before, was _finisher of the law_ in the reign of Henry VII., had a son, who became a bailiff--This bailiff having scraped some money together, made his son an attorney, who changed the name of _Dun_ to _Dunning_--the rest of the genealogy are well known.
_Biographical Correctness_.--As a specimen of the accurate way in which Biographical Dictionaries are made up, the Enquirer refers to Dr. Watkins' volume, in which he writes down that John Adams "died in 1803."--And yet for 23 years after this date, the old patriarch was living in health and happiness. A still more ludicrous blunder appeared a few years since in a French Biographical Dictionary, in which it was stated that the now venerable John Jay, who yet lives full of years and full of honors, was a Frenchman, who, after having framed the Constitution of the State of New-York, and witnessed the close of the American revolution, returned to France--became a member of the French Convention, and was finally brought to the guillotine!--_N.Y. Com. Adv._