Page:Reflections among the monuments.pdf/9

 Sophronia, who died in child-bed.—How often does this calamity happen? The branch ſhoots; but the ſtem withers. The babe ſprings to light; but ſhe that bare him, breathes her laſt. She gives life, but gives it (O pitiable conſideration !) at the expence of her own: and becomes, at once, a mother and corpſe.—Or elſe, perhaps, ſhe expires in ſevere pangs, and is herſelf a tomb for her infant; while the melancholy complaint of a monarch's wo is the epitaph for them both; The children are come to the birth, and there is not ſtrength to bring forth*. Leſs to be lamented, in my opinion, this misfortune than the other. Better, for the tender ſtranger, to be ſtopped in the porch, than to enter only to converſe with affliction. Better to find a grave in the womb, than to be expoſed to a hazardous world, without the guardian of its infantile years, without the faithful guide of its youth.

This monument is diſtinguiſhed by its finer materials, and more delicate appendages. It ſeems to have taken its model from an affluent hand, directed by a generous heart, which thought it could never do enough for the deceaſed. It ſeems, alſo, to exhibit an emblematical picture of Sophronia's perſon and accompliſhments. Is her beauty, or, what is more than beauty, her white robed innocence, repreſented by the