_Epitaphs._--Churchyard literature presents to us some curious specimens of
metaphor; and it is interesting to observe how an old idea is sometimes
unintentionally reproduced. The following lines may be seen on a gravestone
in the churchyard at Kinver, Staffordshire:
"Tired with wand'ring thro' a world of sin,
Hither we came to _Nature's common Inn_,
To rest our wearied bodys for a night,
In hopes to rise that Christ may give us light."
{178} The writer was probably not aware that Spenser says, in his _Faerie
Queen_, iii. 3. 30.:
"And if he then with victorie can lin,
He shall his days with peace bring to his _earthly In_."
And again, _Faerie Queen_, ii. 1. 59.:
"Palmer, quoth he, death is an equall doome
To good and bad, the _common In of rest_."
A Leicestershire poet has recorded, in the churchyard of Melton Mowbray, a
very different conception of our "_earthly Inn_." He says:
"_This world's an Inn_, and I her guest:
I've eat and drank and took my rest
With her awhile, and now I pay
Her lavish bill, and go my way."
You may, perhaps, consider this hardly worthy of a place in your paper; but
I act upon the principle which you inculcate in your motto.