him whom Scott called the “Father of the English Novel.” His first tomb, which Wraxall found in 1772, “nearly concealed by weeds and nettles,” was erected by the English factory, in consequence mainly—as it seems—of a proposal made by an enthusiastic Chevalier de Meyrionnet, to provide one (with an epitaph) at his own expense. That now existing was substituted in 1830, by the exertions of the Rev. Christopher Neville, British Chaplain at Lisbon. It is a heavy sarcophagus, resting upon a large base, and surmounted by just such another urn and flame as that on Hogarth’s Tomb at Chiswick. On the front is a long Latin inscription; on the back the better-known words:—
LUGET BRITANNIA GREMIO NON DARI FOVERE NATUM. [Footnote: The fifth word is generally given as “datum.” But the above version, which has been verified at Lisbon, may be accepted as correct.]
It is to this last memorial that the late George Borrow referred in his Bible in Spain:—
“Let travellers devote one entire morning to inspecting the Arcos and the Mai das agoas, after which they may repair to the English church and cemetery, Pere-la-chaise in miniature, where, if they be of England, they may well be excused if they kiss the cold tomb, as I did, of the author of “Amelia,” the most singular genius which their island ever produced, whose works it has long been the fashion to abuse in public and to read in secret.”
Borrow’s book was first published in 1843. Of late years the tomb had been somewhat neglected; but from a communication in the Athenaeum of May 1879, it appears that it had then been recently cleaned, and
