IN MEMORIAM.
It is a beautiful custom common to all civilized nations, Pagan as well as Christian,—the attempt to preserve a memorial of the virtues and character of the loved and lost who have gone before us to the spirit land; and whether we resort for this purpose to the inscribed and votive tablet, or attempt, so to speak, to embalm the record in letters, the effort seems to spring from a common instinct of the human heart, which prompts us all to treasure up the memory of our departed friends, and to find some outlet for the grief which oppresses our hearts.
I saw in your last week's issue a poetical tribute to the memory of the late Mrs. Rice, wife of Samuel Rice, Esq., of Boston, and I thought it would be becoming and appropriate to insert in your paper, of which she was an occasional contributor and correspondent, an obituary notice of the deceased.
It seems peculiarly appropriate to select the "Journal," as it is published near "the play places of her youth," and where a large portion of her early life was passed.
Mrs. Rice, for years, had been occasionally subject to attacks of a most severe and painful nature, from which she had always, heretofore, been apparently restored to her usual health.
But only a short time since, from what was to her a state of high health—for she had just written to a physician in the country, who in July last had attended and carried her through a most severe and somewhat protracted illness, "that she was as well as she ever was in her life"——she was suddenly and unexpectedly stricken down, never again to recover. Her death was entirely unexpected, not only to her friends, but also to the eminent physicians in attendance. So sudden, indeed, was it, that many of her most intimate friends were not aware of her illness.
