The air is faint, yet still the crowds press in;
With stir of silks and under-flow of talk
That falls from lips of ladies as they walk,
Ere yet the dainty service doth begin:
Ah me! the very organ’s glorious din
Is tuned to pliant trimness in its place.
And over all a sweet melodious grace
Floats with the incense-stream good souls to win!
O God, that spak’st of old from Sinai’s brow!
And Thou that laid’st the tempest with a word!
Is this Thy worship? Come amongst us now
With all Thy thunders, if Thou wouldst be heard.
So tyrannous is this weight of pageantry,
Almost, we cry, “Give back Gethsemane!”
THE PROXY SAINT.
Each for himself must do his Master’s work,
Or at his peril leave it all undone;
Witness the fate of one who sought to shirk
The Sanctuary service yet would shun
The penalty. A man of earthly aims
(So runs the apologue,) whose pious spouse
Would oft remind him of the Church’s claims,
Still answered thus, “Go, thou, and pay our vows
For thee and me!” Now, when at Peter’s gate
The twain together had arrived at last,
He let the woman in; then to her mate,
Shutting the door, “Thou hast already passed
By _proxy_,” said the Saint—“just in the way
That thou on earth was wont to fast and pray.”
ABOUT A NOSE.
’Tis very odd that poets should suppose
There is no poetry about a nose,
When plain as is the nose upon your face,
A noseless face would lack poetic grace.
Noses have sympathy: a lover knows
Noses are always _touched_ when lips are kissing:
And who would care to kiss where nose was missing?
Why, what would be the fragrance of a rose,
And where would be our mortal means of telling
Whether a vile or wholesome odour flows
Around us, if we owned no sense of smelling?
I know a nose, a nose no other knows,
’Neath starry eyes, o’er ruby lips it grows;
Beauty is in its form and music in its blows.
DYSPEPSIA.
Ah, me! what mischiefs from the stomach rise!
What fatal ills, beyond all doubt or question!
How many a deed of high and bold emprise
Has been prevented by a bad digestion!
I ween the savory crust of filthy pies
Hath made full many a man to quake and tremble,
Filling his stomach with dyspeptic sighs,
Until a huge balloon it doth resemble.
Thus do our lower parts impede the upper,
And much the brain’s good works molest and hinder.
We gorge our cerebellum with hot supper,
And burn, with drams, our viscera to a cinder,
Choosing our arrows from Disease’s quiver,
Till man in misery lives to loathe his liver.
HUMILITY.
Fair, soft Humility, so seldom seen,
So oft despised upon this little earth,
Counted by men as dross of nothing worth,
Though in the sight of Mightiness supreme
’Tis hailed and welcomed as a glorious birth,
Offspring of greatness, beauty perfected,
And yet of such fragility extreme,
That if we call it ours, ’tis forfeited;
Named, it escapes us, thus we need beware,
When with the Publican we plead the prayer,
“A sinner, Lord, be merciful to me!”
Our hearts do not say softly, “I thank Thee,
O Lord, for this sweet grace, Humility,
Which I possess, unlike the Pharisee.”
AVE MARIA.
Ave Maria! ’tis the evening hymn
Of many pilgrims on the land and sea.
Soon as the day withdraws, and two or three
Faint stars are burning, all whose eyes are dim
With tears or watching, all of weary limb
Or troubled spirit, yield the bended knee,
And find, O Virgin! life’s repose in thee.
I, too, at nightfall, when the new-born rim
Of the young moon is first beheld above,
Tune my fond thoughts to their devoutest key,
And from all bondage—save remembrance—free
Glad of my liberty as Noah’s dove,
Seek the Madonna most adored by me,
And say mine “Ave Marias” to my love.
Conformity of Sense to Sound.
In the hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.—§Coleridge§: _trans.
Schiller_.
ARTICULATE IMITATION OF INARTICULATE SOUNDS.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.
—§Pope§: _Essay on Criticism_.
On a sudden open fly,
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,
Th’ infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.—§Milton§: _Paradise Lost, ii_.
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.—§Milton§: _Lycidas_.
His bloody hand
Snatched two unhappy of my martial band,
And dashed like dogs against the stony floor.—§Pope§: _Hom. Odys._
The Pilgrim oft
At dead of night, ’mid his orison, hears
Aghast the voice of time, disparting towers,
Tumbling all precipitous down-dashed,
Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon.
—§Dyer§: _Ruins of Rome_.
What! like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce,
With arms, and George, and Brunswick, crowd the verse,
Rend with tremendous sounds your cars asunder,
With drum, gun, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder?
Then all your muse’s softer art display:
Let Carolina smooth the tuneful lay,
Lull with Amelia’s liquid name the nine,
And sweetly flow through all the royal line.—§Pope§: _Sat. I._
Remarkable examples are afforded by Dryden’s _Alexander’s Feast_, and
_The Bells_ of Edgar A. Poe.
IMITATION OF TIME AND MOTION.
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecs sound
To many a youth and many a maid
Dancing in the checkered shade.—§Milton§: _L’Allegro_.
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground.
§Pope§: _Hom. Odys._
Which urged, and labored, and forced up with pain,
Recoils and rolls impetuous down, and smokes along the plain.
§Dryden§: _Lucretius_.
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
§Pope§: _Essay on Criticism_.
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o’er th’ unbending corn, and skims along the main.
§Pope§: _Essay on Criticism_.
Oft on a plat of rising ground
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar.—§Milton§: _Il Penseroso_.
The well-known hexameters of Virgil, descriptive respectively of the
galloping of horses over a resounding plain, and of the heavy blows in
alternately hammering the metal on the anvil, afford good examples,—the
dactylic, of rapidity, the spondaic, of slowness.
Quadrupe- | dante pu- | trem soni- | tu quatit | ungula | campum,
_Æneid_, viii. 596.
Illi in- | ter se- | se mag- | na vi | brachia | tollunt.—_Æneid_, viii.
452.
IMITATION OF DIFFICULTY AND EASE.
When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw,
The line, too, labors, and the words move slow, &c.—§Pope§: _Ess. on
Criticism_.
He through the thickest of the throng gan threke.—§Chaucer§: _Knight’s
Tale_.
And strains from hard-bound brains six lines a year.—§Pope§: _Sat.
Frag._
Part huge of bulk,
Wallowing, unwieldy, enormous in their gait,
Tempest the ocean.—§Milton§: _Paradise Lost_, vii.
He came, and with him Eve, more loath, though first
To offend, discountenanced both, and discomposed.
§Milton§: _Paradise Lost_, x.
So he with difficulty and labor hard
Moved on, with difficulty and labor he.—§Milton§: _Paradise Lost_, ii.
Familiar Quotations from Unfamiliar Sources.
_No Cross, no Crown._
Tolle crucem, qui vis auferre coronam.
§St. Paulinus§, Bishop of Nola.
The way to bliss lies not on beds of down,
And he that had no cross deserves no crown.—§Quarles§: _Esther_.
_Corporations have no souls._
A corporation aggregate of many is invisible, immortal, and vests only
in intendment and consideration of the law. They cannot commit
treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicate, for _they have no souls_,
neither can they appear in person, but by attorney.—_Coke’s Reports_,
vol. x. p. 32.
_Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat._
§Euripides§: _Fragments_.
For those whom God to ruin has designed,
He fits for fate and first destroys their mind.
§Dryden§: _Hind and Panther_.
_Men are but children of a larger growth_;
Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,
And full as craving too, and full as vain.
§Dryden§: _All for Love_, iv. 1.
_Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest._
True friendship’s laws are by this rule expressed,
Welcome, etc.—§Pope§: _Odyssey_, B. xv.
_More worship the rising than the setting sun._
§Pompey to Sylla§: _Plutarch’s Lives_.
_Incidis in Scillam cupiens vitare Charybdim._
§Philippe Gaultier§: _Alexandreis_.
_History is philosophy teaching by example._
§Dionysius of Halicarnassus.§
_Consistency a Jewel._
In the search for the source of familiar quotations, none appears to
have so completely baffled patient seekers as the phrase “Consistency is
a jewel.” Several years ago a perplexed scholar offered a handsome
reward for the discovery of its origin. Not till quite recently,
however, has the claim been set up that the original was found in the
“Ballad of Jolly Robyn Roughhead,” which is preserved in “_Murtagh’s
Collection of Ancient English and Scottish Ballads_.” The stanza in
which it occurs is the following:—
Tush, tush, my lassie, such thoughts resign,
Comparisons are cruel;
Fine pictures suit in frames as fine,
_Consistency’s a jewel_:
For thee and me coarse clothes are best,
Rude folks in homely raiment drest—
Wife Joan and goodman Robyn.
_Cleanliness next to Godliness._
The origin of the proverb, “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” has been
the subject of extended investigation. Bartlett’s “Familiar Quotations”
attributes the phrase to Rev. John Wesley; but as this prominent
Methodist clergyman uses this sentence in his sermons as a quotation
from some other work, it has been suggested that further search is
requisite. Rev. Dr. A. S. Bettelheimer, of Richmond, Va., asserts that
he has discovered this maxim in an abstract of religious principles
contained in an old commentary on the Book of Isaiah. Thus the practical
doctrines of religion are resolved into carefulness, vigorousness,
guiltlessness, abstemiousness and cleanliness. And cleanliness is next
to godliness, which is next to holiness.
_He’s a brick._
An Eastern prince visited the ruler of a neighboring country, and after
viewing various objects worthy of attention, asked to see the
fortifications. He was shown the troops with this remark—“These are my
fortifications; every man is a brick.”
_When you are at Rome do as the Romans do._
This proverb has been traced to a saying of St. Ambrose. St. Augustine
mentions in one of his letters (_Ep._ lxxxvj _ad Casulan_.) that when
his mother was living with him at Milan, she was much scandalized
because Saturday was kept there as a festival; whilst at Rome, where she
had resided a long time, it was kept as a fast. To ease her mind he
consulted the bishop on this question, who told him he could give him no
better advice in the case than to do as he himself did. “For when I go
to Rome,” said Ambrose, “I fast on the Saturday, as they do at Rome;
when I am here, I do not fast.” With this answer, he says that “he
satisfied his mother, and ever after looked upon it as an oracle sent
from heaven.”
_A Nation of Shopkeepers._
To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of
customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of
shopkeepers.—§Adam Smith§, _Wealth of Nations_.
On May 31, 1817, Napoleon is reported to have said to Barry O’Meara,—
You were greatly offended with me for having called you a nation of
shopkeepers. Had I meant by this that you were a nation of cowards,
you would have had reason to be displeased.... I meant that you were a
nation of merchants, and that all your great riches arose from
commerce.... Moreover, no man of sense ought to be ashamed of being
called a shopkeeper.—_Voice from St. Helena._
_Only a pauper._
The lines—
Rattle his bones
Over the stones,
He’s only a pauper whom nobody owns,
are from the _Pauper’s Drive_, by Thomas Noel.
_Taking time by the forelock._
Spenser says, _Sonnet_ lxx.:—
Go to my love, where she is careless laid,
Yet in her winter’s bower not well awake;
Tell her the joyous time will not be staid,
Unless she do him by the forelock take.
_What will Mrs. Grundy say?_
In Morton’s clever comedy, _Speed the Plough_, the first scene of the
first act opens with a view of a farm-house, where Farmer Ashfield is
discovered at a table with his jug and pipe, holding the following
colloquy with his wife, Dame Ashfield, who figures in a riding-dress,
with a basket under her arm:—
_Ashfield_—Well, Dame, welcome whoam. What news does thee bring vrom
market?
_Dame._—What news husband? What I always told you; that Farmer
Grundy’s wheat brought five shillings a quarter more than ours did.
_Ash._—All the better vor he.
_Dame._—Ah! the sun seems to shine on purpose for him.
_Ash._—Come, come, missus, as thee has not the grace to thank God for
prosperous times, dan’t thee grumble when they be unkindly a bit.
_Dame._—And I assure you Dame Grundy’s butter was quite the crack of
the market.
_Ash._—Be quiet woolye? always ding, dinging Dame Grundy into my
ears—_What will Mrs. Grundy zay?_ What will Mrs. Grundy think? Canst
thee be quiet, let ur alone, and behave thyself pratty.
_Though lost to sight, to memory dear._
This oft-quoted line is traced by a modern wag, of an inventive turn, to
Ruthven Jenkyns, who wrote the following verses, published in the
_Greenwich Magazine for Marines, in 1701_:—
Sweetheart, good-bye! the fluttering sail
Is spread to waft me far from thee;
And soon, before the fav’ring gale,
My ship shall bound upon the sea.
Perchance, all desolate and forlorn
These eyes shall miss thee many a year;
But unforgotten every charm,
Though lost to sight, to mem’ry dear.
Sweetheart, good-bye! one last embrace!
O, cruel fate! true souls to sever;
Yet in this heart’s most sacred place
Thou, thou alone shalt dwell forever!
And still shall recollection trace
In Fancy’s mirror, ever near,
Each smile, each tear—that form, that face—
Though lost to sight, to mem’ry dear.
_Too low they build who build beneath the stars._
Builders who adopt this motto are indebted for it to Young, _The
Complaint_, viii. 215.
_Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel._
Dr. Johnson, according to Boswell, is credited with this phrase.
_So much the worse for the facts._
M. Royer Collard disapproved of the opinions of the Fathers of Port
Royal on the doctrine of grace: “_Ils ont les textes pour eux_, disait
il, _j’en suis faché pour les textes_.” So much the worse for the
texts,—a very different and much more reasonable saying than the
paradoxical expression commonly ascribed to Voltaire.
_Conspicuous by its absence._
Earl Russell, in an address to the electors of the city of London,
alluding to Lord Derby’s Reform Bill, which had just been defeated,
said:—
Among the defects of the Bill, which were numerous, one provision was
conspicuous by its presence, and one by its absence.
In the course of a speech subsequently delivered at a meeting of Liberal
electors at the London Tavern, he justified his use of these words
thus:—
It has been thought that by a misnomer or a bull on my part I alluded
to it as “a provision conspicuous by its absence,” a turn of
phraseology which is not an original expression of mine, but is taken
from one of the greatest historians of antiquity.
The historian referred to is Tacitus, who, (_Annals_, iii. 761) speaking
of the images carried in procession at the funeral of Junia, says: _Sed
præfulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso quod effigies eorum non
videbantur_. Russell’s adaptation recalls the “brilliant flashes of
silence” which Sydney Smith attributed to Macaulay. Since the Jesuits
succeeded in causing the lives of Arnauld and Pascal to be excluded from
_L’Histoire des Hommes Illustres_, by Perrault, the epigrammatic
expression _Briller par son absence_ has been popular among the French.
_Do as I say, not as I do._
This proverbial expression was in common use among the Italian monks in
the Middle Ages. It occurs in the _Decameron_ of Boccacio thus: “Ils
croient avoir bien répondu et être absous de tout crime quand ils ont
dit, _Faites ce que nous disons et ne faites pas ce que nous faisons_.”
The germ of the words thus put into the mouths of the friars of his day,
Boccacio no doubt found in the language of our Saviour recorded in
Matthew xxiii. 2, 3:—“The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat; all
therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do
not ye after their works: _for they say and do not_.”
* * * * *
Mr. Longfellow, in his _New England Tragedies_, puts into the mouth of
Captain Kempthorne, back in the times of Quaker persecution, a now
familiar phrase. He speaks of
_A solid man of Boston_;
A comfortable man, with dividends,
And the first salmon, and the first green peas.
Aubrey in his _Letters_, speaking of the handwriting of the poet Waller,
says:—“He writes a lamentable hand, as bad as the _scratching of a
hen_.” Probably suggested by the “_gallina scripsit_” of Plautus.
The phrase _masterly inactivity_, first used by Sir James Mackintosh in
his _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_, finds a prototype in the Horatian expression,
“_strenua nos exercet inertia_,” (_Epist. lib._ I., xi. 28,) and in the
words of Isaiah, “their strength is to sit still” (xxx. 7).
From _Don Quixote_ we have _Honesty is the best policy_. From _Gil
Blas_, (Smollet’s trans.,) comes _Facts are stubborn things_. From
Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_, (P. iii. Sec. 3, Mem. i. Subs. 2,)
_Comparisons are odious_. From Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress_, _Dark as
pitch_, and _Every tub must stand on its own bottom_. From Shakspeare,
_Fast and loose_ (_Love’s Labor Lost, iii. 1._); _Main chance_ (_2 Henry
IV. iii. 1_); _Let the world slide_ (_Taming of the Shrew_, _Induc.
i._). From Burns, (_Epistle from Esopus to Maria_,) _Durance vile_.
§Christmas§ comes but once a year.—§Thomas Tusser§, 1580.
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
Originally written,—
It is an ill wind turns none to good.—§Thomas Tusser.§
Look ere thou leap.—§Tusser.§
And
Look before you ere you leap.—§Butler§: _Hudibras_, c. 2.
Bid the devil take the hindmost.—_Hudibras_, c. 2.
Count the chickens ere they’re hatched.—_Hudibras_, c. 3.
Necessity, the tyrant’s plea.—§Milton.§—_Paradise Lost, B._ iv.
Peace hath her victories, &c.—§Ibid.§: _Sonnet_ xvi.
The old man eloquent.—§Ibid.§: _Tenth Sonnet_.
On the light fantastic toe.—§Ibid.§: _L’Allegro_.
The devil may cite Scripture for his purpose.
§Shakspeare§: _Merchant of
Venice_.
Assume a virtue though you have it not.—_Hamlet._
Brevity is the soul of wit.—_Hamlet._
The sere, the yellow leaf.—_Macbeth._
Curses not loud, but deep.—_Macbeth._
Make assurance doubly sure.—_Macbeth._
Thereby hangs a tale.—_As You Like It._
Good wine needs no bush.—As You Like It.
Though last, not least, in love.—_Julius Cæsar._
Food for powder.—_First Part Henry IV._
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.—_Troilus and Cressida._
And made a sunshine in a shady place.—§Spenser§: _Fairy Queen_.
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new.
§Dr. Johnson§: _Prologue at the opening of the Drury Lane Theatre_,
1747.
To point a moral or adorn a tale.—§Ibid.§: _Vanity of Human Wishes_.
Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.—§Ibid.§: _London_.
Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no fibs.
§Goldsmith§: _She Stoops to
Conquer_.
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.—§Ibid.§:
_Retaliation_.
Winter lingering chills the lap of May.—§Ibid.§: _The Traveller_.
Of two evils I have chose the least.—§Prior.§
His (God’s) image cut in ebony.—§Thomas Fuller.§
Richard’s himself again.—§Colley Cibber.§
Building castles in the air.
Originally written,—
Building castles in Spain.—§Scarron.§
Hope, the dream of a waking man.—§Basil.§
Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.
§Congreve§: _The Mourning Bride_.
Earth has no rage like love to hatred turned.—§Ibid.§
Let who may make the laws of a people, allow me to write their
ballads, and I’ll guide them at my will.—§Sir Philip Sidney.§
When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war.
Originally,
When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war.
§Nat Lee§: _Play of Alexander the Great_, 1692.
Westward the course of empire takes its way.—§Bishop Berkeley§.
No pent-up Utica contracts your powers,
But the whole boundless continent is yours.
§J. M. Sewall§: _Epilogue to Cato_,
1778.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Originally,
Out of minde as soon as out of sight.—§Lord Brooke§.
Through thick and thin.—§Dryden§: _Absalom and Achitophel_.
He whistled as he went for want of thought.—§Ib.§: _Cymon and
Iphigenia_.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied.—§Ib.§: _Absalom &
Achitophel_.
None but the brave deserve the fair.—§Ibid.§: _Alexander’s Feast_.
To err is human; to forgive, divine.—§Pope§: _Essay on Criticism_.
In wit a man; simplicity, a child.—§Ibid.§: _Epitaph on Gay_.
I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.—§Ib.§: _Prologue to the
Satires_.
Damns with faint praise.—§Ibid.§: _Prologue to the Satires_.
Order is Heaven’s first law.—§Ibid.§: _Essay on Man_.
An honest man’s the noblest work of God.—§Ibid.§: _Essay on Man_.
Looks through nature up to nature’s God.—§Ibid.§: _Essay on Man_.
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.—§Ibid.§: _Essay on Man_.
Who never mentions hell to ears polite.—§Ibid.§: _The Epistles_.
From seeming evil still educing good.—§Thomson§: _Hymn_.
To teach the young idea how to shoot: §Ibid.§: _The Seasons, Spring_.
’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.
§Campbell§: _Pleasures of
Hope_.
And man the hermit sighed till woman smiled.—§Ibid.§
Where ignorance is bliss
’Tis folly to be wise.—§Gray§: _Ode on Eton College_.
Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.—§Ib.§: _The Progress of
Poesy_.
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.—§Burns§: _Tam O’Shanter_.
As clear as a whistle.—§Byrom§: _The Astrologer_.
She walks the waters like a thing of life.—§Byron§: _The Island_.
The cups that cheer but not inebriate.—§Cowper§: _Task_.
Not much the worse for wear.—§Ibid.§
Masterly inactivity.—§Mackintosh§: 1791.
The Almighty Dollar.—§Washington Irving§: _Creole Village_.
Entangling alliances.—§George Washington.§
Where liberty dwells, there is my country.—§Benjamin Franklin.§
The post of honor is the private station.—§Thos. Jefferson.§
Straws show which way the wind blows.—§James Cheatham.§
A good time coming.—§Walter Scott§: _Rob Roy_.
Face the music.—§J. Fenimore Cooper.§
Churchyard Literature.
HIC JACET SACRUM MEMORIÆ.
§Earth’s§ highest station ends in §HERE HE LIES§!
And §DUST TO DUST§ concludes her noblest song.
§Emigravit§ is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies:
Dead he is not, but departed, for the Christian never dies.
A hieroglyph formed by the two first letters of the Greek word
_Christos_, intersecting the _Chi_ longitudinally by the _Rho_,—a
palm-leaf, or a wreath of palm-leaves, indicating victory,—a crown,
which speaks of the reward of the saints,—an _immortelle_, or a vessel
supporting a column of flame, indicating continued life,—an anchor,
which indicates hope,—a ship under sail, which says, “Heavenward
bound,”—the letters _Alpha_ and _Omega_, the Apocalyptic title of
Christ,—the dove, the emblem of innocence and holiness,—the winged
insect escaping from the chrysalis, typical of the resurrection,—the
cross, the Christian’s true and only glory in life and death, by which
he is crucified to the world, and the world to him,—these are the
emblems that speak to the Christian’s heart of faith, and hope, and
love, and humility.
EPITAPHS OF EMINENT MEN.
§Christopher Columbus§ died at Valladolid, May 20, 1506, æt. 70. In 1513
his body was taken to Seville, on the Guadalquivir, and there deposited
in the family vault of the Dukes of Alcala, in the Cathedral. Upon a
tablet was inscribed, in Castilian, this meagre couplet, which is still
legible:—
A Castilla y Arragon
Otro mondo dio Colon.[23]
[To Castile and Aragon
Columbus gave another world.]
Footnote 23:
Irving gives the inscription thus:—
Por Castilla y por Leon
Nuevo mundo hallo Colon.
In 1536, the remains of the great navigator were conveyed to St. Domingo
and deposited in the Cathedral, where they continued until a recent
period, when they were finally disinterred, and removed to Havana. The
inscription on the tablet in the Cathedral of St. Domingo, now
obliterated, was as follows:—
Hic locus abscondit præclari membra §Columbi§
Cujus nomen ad astra volat.
Non satis unus erat sibi mundus notus, at orbem
Ignotum priscis omnibus ipse dedit;
Divitias summas terras dispersit in omnes,
Atque animas cœlo tradidit innumeras;
Invenit campos divinis legibus aptos,
Regibus et nostris prospera regna dedit.[24]
Footnote 24:
This spot conceals the body of the renowned Columbus, whose name
towers to the stars. Not satisfied with the known globe, he added to
all the old an unknown world. Throughout all countries he distributed
untold wealth, and gave to heaven unnumbered souls. He found an
extended field for gospel missions, and conferred prosperity upon the
reign of our monarchs.
§William Shakspeare§ died April 23, 1616, æt. 52, and was buried in the
chancel of the church of Stratford. The monument erected to his memory
represents the poet with a thoughtful countenance, resting on a cushion
and in the act of writing. Immediately below the cushion is the
following distich:—
Judicio Pylium; genio Socratem; arte Maronem:
Terra tegit; populis mœrot; Olympus habet.[25]
Footnote 25:
A Nestor in discrimination, a Socrates in talent, a Virgil in poetic
art; the earth covers him, the people mourn for him, Heaven possesses
him.
On a tablet underneath are inscribed these lines:—
Stay, passenger: why dost thou go so fast?
Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath placed
Within this monument,—Shakspeare; with whom
Quick Nature died; whose name doth deck the tomb
Far more than cost; since all that he hath writ
Leaves living Art but page to serve his wit:
and on the flat stone covering the grave is inscribed, in very irregular
characters, the following quaint supplication, blessing, and menace:—
Good Friend, for §Jesvs§ sake forbeare
To digg §T-E§ dvst EncloAsed HERE;
Blest be §T-E§ Man T/Y spares §T§-hs stones,
And evrst be He T/Y moves my bones.
§SIR ISAAC NEWTON, OB.§ 1727, §ÆT.§ 85.
Here lies interred Isaac Newton, knight, who, with an energy of mind
almost divine, guided by the light of mathematics purely his own,
first demonstrated the motions and figures of the planets, the paths
of comets, and the causes of the tides; who discovered, what before
his time no one had ever suspected, that the rays of light are
differently refrangible, and that this is the cause of colors; and who
was a diligent, penetrating, and faithful interpreter of nature,
antiquity, and the sacred writings. In his philosophy, he maintained
the majesty of the Supreme Being; in his manners, he expressed the
simplicity of the Gospel. Let mortals congratulate themselves that the
world has seen so great and excellent a man, the glory of human
nature.
Pope’s inscription is as follows:—
Isaacus Newtonus:
Quem Immortalem
Testantur _Tempus_, _Natura_, _Cœlum_:
Mortalem
Hoc marmor fatetur.
Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night:
§God§ said, _Let Newton be!_ and all was light.
JOHNSON’S EPITAPH ON GOLDSMITH.[26]
Thou seest the tomb of Oliver; retire,
Unholy feet, nor o’er his ashes tread.
Ye whom the deeds of old, verse, nature, fire,
Mourn nature’s priest, the bard, historian, dead.
Footnote 26:
The original is in Greek, as follows:—
Τον ταφον εισοραας τον Ολιβαριοιο, κονιη
Ἀφροσι μη σεμνην, ξεινε, ποδεσσι πατελ.
Οισι μεμηλε φυσις, μετρων χαρις, εργα παλαιων
Κλαιετε ποιητην, ιστορικον, φυσικον.
COWPER’S EPITAPH ON DR. JOHNSON.
Here Johnson lies,—a sage by all allowed,
Whom to have bred may well make England proud;
Whose prose was eloquence, by wisdom taught,
The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought;
Whose verse may claim—grave, masculine and strong—
Superior praise to the mere poet’s song;
Who many a noble gift from heaven possessed,
And faith at last, alone worth all the rest.
O man immortal by a double prize,
By fame on earth,—by glory in the skies!
§GEORGE WASHINGTON§, §ob. Dec. 14, 1799, æt. 67§.
When, in 1838, the remains of Washington were removed from the old vault
into the new, at Mount Vernon, the coffin was placed in a beautiful
sarcophagus of white marble, from a quarry in Chester county,
Pennsylvania, and prepared in Philadelphia by the gentleman who
presented it. The lid is wrought with the arms of the country and the
inscription here appended. Independently of other considerations, it is
desirable, for the honor of the nation so largely indebted to
Washington, that his grave should be something more than an advertising
medium for a marble-mason. But the faithful chronicler must take things
as he finds them, not always as they should be:—
WASHINGTON.
By the permission of
Lawrence Lewis,
The surviving executor of
George Washington,
this sarcophagus
was presented by
John Struthers,
of Philadelphia, Marble Mason,
§A.D.§ 1837.
The stone and the inscription over the grave of Franklin and his wife,
at the corner of Fifth and Arch Streets, Philadelphia, and recently
opened to public view by substituting for the old brick wall a neat iron
railing, are according to his own direction in his will. The exceeding
plainness of both are strikingly characteristic of the man. The stone is
a simple marble slab, six feet by four, lying horizontally, and raised
about a foot above the ground. It bears the following:—
§Benjamin§ }
§AND§ } §Franklin.§
§Deborah§ }
1790.
The following is a copy of the epitaph written by Franklin upon himself,
at the age of twenty-three, while a journeyman printer:—
The Body
of
§Benjamin Franklin§, Printer,
(Like the cover of an old book,
Its contents torn out,
And stript of its lettering and gilding,)
Lies food for worms:
Yet the work itself shall not be lost,
For it will [as he believed] appear once more,
In a new
And more beautiful edition,
Corrected and amended
by
The Author.
That this well-known typographical inscription was plagiarized from
Mather’s _Magnalia Christi Americana_, is evident from Franklin’s own
admission of his familiarity with the works of “the great Cotton.” To
the perusal in early life of Mather’s excellent volume, _Essays to do
Good_, published in 1710, Franklin ascribed all his “usefulness in the
world.” The lines alluded to in the famous Ecclesiastical History are by
Benjamin Woodbridge, a member of the first graduating class of Harvard
University, 1642:—
A living, breathing Bible; tables where
Both Covenants at large engraven were.
Gospel and law, in ’s heart, had each its column;
His head an index to the sacred volume;
His very name a title-page; and, next,
His life a commentary on the text.
O what a monument of glorious worth,
When, in a new edition, he comes forth!
Without errata may we think he’ll be,
In leaves and covers of eternity!
Old Joseph Capen, minister of Topsfield, had also, in 1681, given John
Foster, who set up the first printing-press in Boston, the benefit of
the idea, _in memoriam_:—
Thy body, which no activeness did lack,
Now’s laid aside like an old almanac,
But for the present only’s out of date;
’Twill have at length a far more active state.
Yea, though with dust thy body soiléd be,
Yet at the resurrection we shall see
A fair edition, and of matchless worth,
Free from errata, new in Heaven set forth;
’Tis but a word from God, the great Creator—
It shall be done when he saith _Imprimatur_.
Davis, in his _Travels in America_, finds another source in a Latin
epitaph on the London bookseller Jacob Tonson, published with an English
translation in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for Feb., 1736. This is its
conclusion:—
When Heaven reviewed th’ _original text_,
’Twas with _erratas_ few perplexed:
Pleased with the _copy_ ’t was _collated_,
And to a better life _translated_.
But let to life this _supplement_
Be printed on thy _monument_,
Lest the _first page_ of _death_ should be,
Great editor, a _blank_ to thee;
And thou who many _titles_ gave
Should want _one title_ for this grave.
Stay, passenger, and drop a tear;
Here lies a noted Bookseller;
This marble _index_ here is placed
To tell, that when he found defaced
His _book of life_, he died with grief:
Yet he, by true and genuine belief,
A new edition may expect,
Far more _enlarged_ and more _correct_.
AT MONTICELLO, VA.
Here lies buried
§Thomas Jefferson§,
Author of the Declaration of American Independence,
Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom,
And Father of the University of Virginia.
WILLIAM HOGARTH.
Garrick’s epitaph on Hogarth at Chiswick is well known. That written by
Dr. Johnson is shorter and superior:—
The hand of him here torpid lies,
That drew the essential form of grace;
Here closed in death the attentive eyes
That saw the manners in the face.
LORD BROUGHAM’S EPITAPH ON WATT, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Not to perpetuate a name
Which must endure while the peaceful arts flourish,
But to show
That mankind have learned to honor those
Who best deserve their gratitude,
The King, his Ministers, and many of the Nobles
And Commoners of the Realm
Raised this Monument to
§James Watt§,
Who, directing the force of an original genius,
Early exercised in philosophic research,
To the improvement of
The Steam Engine,
Enlarged the resources of his Country,
Increased the power of man,
And rose to an eminent place
Among the most illustrious followers of Science
And the real benefactors of the World.
EULOGISTIC, APT, APPROPRIATE.
BEN JONSON’S ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.
Underneath this marble hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sydney’s sister,—Pembroke’s mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair, and wise, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee!
Marble piles let no man raise
To her name for after days;
Some kind woman born as she,
Reading this, like Niobe,
Shall turn marble, and become
Both her mourner and her tomb.
ON ANOTHER LADY FRIEND.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die,
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.
ANDREW JACKSON’S EPITAPH ON HIS WIFE.
Here lie the remains of §Mrs. Rachel Jackson§, wife of President
Jackson, who died December 22d, 1828, aged 61. Her face was fair, her
person pleasing, her temper amiable, and her heart kind. She delighted
in relieving the wants of her fellow-creatures, and cultivated that
divine pleasure by the most liberal and unpretending methods. To the
poor she was a benefactress; to the rich she was an example; to the
wretched a comforter; to the prosperous an ornament. Her pity went
hand in hand with her benevolence; and she thanked her Creator for
being permitted to do good. A being so gentle and yet so virtuous,
slander might wound, but could not dishonor. Even death, when he tore
her from the arms of her husband, could but transplant her to the
bosom of her God.
BISHOP LOWTH’S EPITAPH ON HIS DAUGHTER.
Cara, vale, ingenio præstans, pietate, pudore,
Et plus quam natæ nomine cara, vale.
Cara Maria, vale: ab veniet felicius ævum,
Quando iterum tecum, sim modo dignus, ero.
Cara redi, lætâ tum dicam voce, paternos
Eja age in amplexus, cara Maria, redi!
[Dearer than daughter,—paralleled by few
In genius, goodness, modesty,—adieu!
Adieu! Maria,—till that day more blest,
When, if deserving, I with thee shall rest.
Come, then, thy sire will cry in joyful strain,
Oh, come to my paternal arms again.]
IN THE CHURCHYARD OF OLD ST. PANCRAS.
_Miss Basnett, 1756, æt. 23._
Go, spotless honor and unsullied truth;
Go, smiling innocence, and blooming youth;
Go, female sweetness joined with manly sense;
Go, winning wit, that never gave offence;
Go, soft humanity, that blest the poor;
Go, saint-eyed patience, from affliction’s door
Go, modesty that never wore a frown;
Go, virtue, and receive thy heavenly crown.
Not from a stranger came this heartfelt verse:
The friend inscribed thy tomb, whose tear bedewed thy hearse.
MALHERBE’S EPITAPH ON A YOUNG LADY.
Elle était de ce monde, ou les plus belles choses
Ont le pire destin;
Et, rose, elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses,
L’espace d’un matin.
[She was of this world, where all things the rarest
Have still the shortest race;
A rose she lived (so lives of flowers the fairest)
A little morning’s space!]
IN ST. MARY’S CHURCH, NOTTINGHAM.
§Luke xx. 36.§
Sleep on in peace; await thy Maker’s will;
Then rise unchanged, and be an angel still!
In the church of Ightham, near Sevenoaks, Kent, is a mural monument with
the bust of a lady, who was famous for her needle-work and was
traditionally reported to have written the letter to Lord Monteagle
which resulted in the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. The following is
the inscription:—
D. D. D.
To the pretious name and honour of Dame Dorothy Selby, Relict of
Sir William Selby, Kt. the only daughter and heire of Charles Bonham,
Esq.
She was a Dorcas,
Whose curious needle wound the abused stage
Of this leud world into the golden age;
Whose pen of steel and silken inck enrolled
The acts of Jonah in records of gold;
Whose arte disclosed that plot, which, had it taken,
Rome had triumphed, and Britain’s walls had shaken.
She was
In heart a Lydia, and in tongue a Hanna;
In zeale a Ruth, in wedlock a Susanna;
Prudently simple, providently wary,
To the world a Martha, and to heaven a Mary.
Who put on { in the year } Pilgrimage, 69.
immortality { of her } Redeemer, 1641.
AT WESTFIELD, N. J.
_Mrs. Jennet Woodruff, 1750, æt. 43._
The dame, that rests within this tomb,
Had Rachel’s beauty, Leah’s fruitful womb,
Abigail’s wisdom, Lydia’s faithful heart,
Martha’s just care, and Mary’s better part.
AT QUINCY, MASS.
1708.
Braintree, thy prophet’s gone; this tomb inters
The Rev. Moses Fiske his sacred herse.
Adore heaven’s praiseful art, that formed the man,
Who souls, not to himself, but Christ oft won;
Sailed through the straits with Peter’s family
Renowned, and Gaius’ hospitality,
Paul’s patience, James’s prudence, John’s sweet love,
Is landed, entered, cleared, and crowned above.
IN CRANSTON, R.I.
Here lies the Body of
§Joseph Williams, Esq.§
Son of Roger Williams, Esq.
(The first white man that came to Providence.)
Born 1644. Died 1725.
In King Philip’s war, he courageously went through,
And the native Indians he bravely did subdue;
And now he’s gone down into the grave, and he will be no more
Until it please Almighty God his body to restore
Into some proper shape, as he thinks fit to be,
Perhaps like a grain of wheat, as Paul set forth, you see,
Corinthians 1 Book, 15 chap. 37 verse.
ON THE TOMB OF MRS. DUNBAR, TRENTON, N.J.
The meed of merit ne’er shall die,
Nor modest worth neglected lie,
The fame that pious virtue gives,
The Memphian monuments outlives.
Reader, wouldst thou secure such praise,
Go, learn Religion’s pleasant ways.
POPE’S EPITAPH ON HARCOURT.
To this sad shrine, whoe’er thou art! draw near;
Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear:
Who ne’er knew joy but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.
The idea in the last line appears to be derived from an epitaph on an
excellent wife, in the Roman catacombs:—
§Conjugi piissimæ
de qua nihil aliud dolitus est
nisi mortem.§
ON A SPANISH GIRL WHO DIED BROKEN-HEARTED.
She who lies beneath this stone
Died of constancy alone:
Fear not to approach, oh, passer-by—
Of naught contagious did she die.
One of the simplest, truest, and most dignified epitaphs ever written
may be found in the _Spectator_, No. 518:—
§Hic jacet R. C. in expectatione diei supremi.
Qualis erat dies iste indicabit.§
AT BARNSTABLE, MASS.
_Rev. Joseph Green, 1770, æt. 70._
Think what the Christian minister should be,
You’ve then his character, for such was he.
A similar epitaph may be found in Torrington churchyard, Devon:—
She was—but words are wanting to say what.
Think what a woman should be—she was that.
Which provoked the following reply:—
A woman should be both a wife and mother,
But Jenny Jones was neither one nor t’other.
AT GRIMSTEAD, ESSEX.
A wife so true, there are but few,
And difficult to find;
A wife more just, and true to trust,
There is not left behind.
AT BATON ROUGE, LA.
Here lies the body of David Jones. His last words were, “I die a
Christian and a Democrat.”
AT ELIZABETH CITY, N. J.
_Elias Boudinot, 1770, æt. 63._
This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,
May truly say, Here lies an honest man.[27]
Footnote 27:
From Pope’s Epitaph on Fenton.
ON SIR THOMAS VERE.
When Vere sought death, armed with his sword and shield,
Death was afraid to meet him in the field;
But when his weapons he had laid aside,
Death, like a coward, struck him, and he died.
BEN JONSON’S EPITAPH ON MICHAEL DRAYTON.
(_One of the Elizabethan Poets, ob. 1631._)
Do, pious Marble, let thy readers know
What they and what their children owe
To §Drayton’s§ name, whose sacred dust
We recommend unto thy §TRUST§:
Protect his memory and preserve his story,
Remain a lasting monument of his glory;
And when thy ruins shall disclaim
To be the treasurer of his name,
His name, that cannot fade, shall be
An everlasting monument to thee!
The epigrammatic turn in the concluding stanza was evidently plagiarized
from Ion’s inscription upon the tomb of Euripides, which is thus
faithfully translated:—
Divine Euripides, this tomb we see
So fair, is not a monument for thee,
So much as thou for it; since all will own
Thy name and lasting praise adorn the stone.
IN TICHFIELD CHURCH, HANTS.
The Husband, speakinge trewly of his wife,
Read his losse in hir death, hir praise in life:
Heare Lucie Quinsie Bromfield buried lies,
With neighbors sad deepe, weepinge, hartes, sighes, eyes.
Children eleaven, tenne livinge, me she brought.
More kind, trewe, chaste was noane, in deed, word, thought.
Howse, children, state, by hir was ruld, bred, thrives.
One of the best of maides, of women, wives,
Now gone to God, her heart sent long before;
In fasting, prayer, faith, hope, and alms’ deedes stoare.
If anie faulte, she lovéd me too much.
Ah, pardon that, for ther are too fewe such!
Then, reader, if thou not hard-hearted be,
Praise God for hir, but sigh and praie for me.
Heare, by hir dead, I dead desire to lie,
Till, raised to life, wee meet no more to die.
1618.
ON INFANTS AND CHILDREN.
The following epitaph on an infant is by Samuel Wesley, the author of
the caustic lines on the custom of perpetuating lies on monumental
marble, by commemorating virtues which never had an existence,—ending
thus:—
If on his specious marble we rely,
Pity such worth as his should ever die!
If credit to his real life we give,
Pity a wretch like him should ever live!
ON AN INFANT.
Beneath, a sleeping infant lies.
To earth whose ashes lent
More glorious shall hereafter rise,
But not more innocent.
When the archangel’s trump shall blow,
And souls and bodies join,
What crowds will wish their lives below
Had been as short as thine!
ON FOUR INFANTS BURIED IN THE SAME TOMB.
Bold infidelity, turn pale and die!
Beneath this stone four infants’ ashes lie:
Say, are they lost or saved?
If death’s by sin, they sinned; for they are here;
If heaven’s by works, in heaven they can’t appear.
Reason, ah, how depraved!
Revere the Bible’s sacred page; the knot’s untied:
They died, for Adam sinned; they live, for Jesus died.
IN MOUNT AUBURN CEMETERY.
On the base of a beautiful recumbent statuette in Yarrow Path is
inscribed:—
EMILY.
Shed not for her the bitter tear,
Nor give the heart to vain regret;
Tis but the casket that lies here:
The gem that filled it sparkles yet.
ON A LITTLE BOY IN GREENWOOD CEMETERY.
Our §God§, to call us homeward,
His only §Son§ sent down;
And now, still more to tempt our hearts,
Has taken up our own.
ON THE TOMBSTONE OF A CHILD BLIND FROM BIRTH.
There shall be no night there.
ON A CHILD FOUR YEARS OLD, WHO WAS BURNED TO DEATH.
“O!”
Says the gardener, as he passes down the walk,
“Who destroyed that flower? Who plucked that plant?”
His fellow-servant said,
“The Master.”
And the gardener held his peace.
AT LITIZ, LANCASTER COUNTY, PA.
Oh, blest departed one!
Whose all of life—a rosy ray—
Blushed into dawn and passed away.
Uhland’s beautiful epitaph on an infant[28] has been thus paraphrased:—
Thou art come and gone with footfall low,
A wanderer hastening to depart;
Whither, and whence? we only know
From God thou wast, with God thou art.
Footnote 28:
Du kamst, Du gingst mit leiser Spur,
Ein flucht’ger Gast in Erdenland:
Woher? wohin?—Wer wissen nur
Aus Gottes hand in Gottes hand.
Better than this in spirit, by all that makes Christian faith and hope
better than vague questioning, and fully equal to it in poetic merit, is
the following by F. T. Palgrave:—
Pure, sweet, and fair, ere thou could’st taste of ill,
God willed it and thy baby breath was still;
Now ’mong his lambs thou livest thy Saviour’s care,
Forever as thou wast, pure, sweet and fair.
COPIED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.
Just with her lips the cup of life she pressed,
Found the taste bitter and declined the rest;
Averse then turning from the light of day,
She softly sighed her little soul away.
* * * * *
The child that sleeps within this silent tomb
Departed at the end of two short years:
Many will wish when the great Judge shall come,
They’d lived no longer in this vale of tears.
* * * * *
This lovely bud, so young, so fair,
Called hence by early doom,
Just came to show how sweet a flower
In Paradise would bloom.
This by Burton, author of _The Anatomy of Melancholy_:—
Can nurse choose in her sweet babe more to find
Than goods of Fortune, Body, and of Mind?
Lo here at once all this; what greater bliss
Canst hope or wish? Heaven. Why there he is.
ON A TOMBSTONE IN AUVERGNE.
Marie was the only child of her mother,
“And she was a widow.”
Marie sleeps in this grave—
And the widow has now no child.
HISTORICAL EPITAPH.
A person of the name of Mary Scott was buried near the church of
Dalkeith, in 1728, for whom the following singular epitaph was composed,
but never engraved on her tombstone, though it has been frequently
mentioned as copied from it:—
Stop, passenger, until my life you read:
The living may get knowledge from the dead.
Five times five years unwedded was my life;
Five times five years I was a virtuous wife;
Ten times five years I wept a widow’s woes;
Now, tired of human scenes, I here repose.
Betwixt my cradle and my grave were seen
Seven mighty Kings of Scotland and a Queen.
Full twice five years the Commonwealth I saw,
Ten times the subjects rise against the law;
And, which is worse than any civil war,
A king arraigned before the subjects’ bar;
Swarms of sectarians, hot with hellish rage,
Cut off his royal head upon the stage.
Twice did I see old Prelacy pulled down,
And twice the cloak did sink beneath the gown.
I saw the Stuart race thrust out,—nay, more,
I saw our country sold for English ore;
Our numerous nobles, who have famous been,
Sunk to the lowly number of sixteen;
Such desolation in my days have been,
I have an end of all perfection seen.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
ON THE MONUMENT OF A DROPSICAL LADY.
Here lies Dame Mary Page,
Relict of Sir Gregory Page, Bart.
She departed this life, March 4th, 1728,
In the 56th year of her age.
In 67 months she was tapped 66 times, and
Had taken away 240 gallons of water.
AT THE OLD MEN’S HOSPITAL, NORWICH, ENG.
In Memory of Mrs. Phebe Crewe, who died May 28, 1817, aged 77 years;
who, during forty years’ practice as a midwife in this city, brought
into the world nine thousand seven hundred and thirty children.
IN THE ABBEY CHURCH OF CONWAY.
Here lyeth the body of Nich^{las} Hooker, who was the one and fortieth
child of his father by Alice his only wife, and the father of seven
and twenty children by one wife. He died March 20th, 1637.
AT WOLSTANTON.
Mrs. Ann Jennings.
Some have children, some have none:
Here lies the mother of twenty-one.
IN THE CHURCHYARD OF HEYDON.
Here lieth the body of William Strutton, of Paddington, buried May
18th, 1734, who had by his first wife, 28 children, and by a second
wife, 17; own father to 45, grandfather to 86, great-grandfather to
97, and great-great-grandfather to 23; in all, 251.
IN THE CHURCHYARD OF PEWSEY, WILTSHIRE.
Here lies the body of Lady O’Looney, great-niece of Burke, commonly
called the sublime. She was bland, passionate, and deeply religious;
also, she painted in water-colors, and sent several pictures to the
exhibition. She was first cousin to Lady Jones; and of such is the
kingdom of heaven.
IN CRAYFORD CHURCHYARD, KENT.
Here lieth the body of Peter Snell, thirty-five years clerk of the
parish. He lived respected as a pious and faithful man, and died on
his way to church to assist at a wedding, on the 31st day of March,
1811. Aged 70 years. The inhabitants of Crayford have raised this
stone to his cheerful memory, and as a tribute to his long and
faithful services.
The life of this clerk was just threescore and ten,
Nearly half of which time he had sung out Amen.
In his youth he was married, like other young men,
But his wife died one day, so he chanted Amen.
A second he took; she departed: what then?
He married and buried a third with Amen.
Thus his joys and his sorrows were _treble_; but then
His voice was deep _bass_, as he sang out Amen.
On the horn he could blow as well as most men,
So “his horn was exalted” in blowing Amen.
But he lost all his wind after threescore and ten,
And here with his wives he waits till again
The trumpet shall rouse him to sing out Amen.
AT WREXHAM, WALES.
Elihu Yale, (founder of Yale College,) ob. 1721, æt. 73.
Born in America, in Europe bred,
In Afric travelled, and in Asia wed;
Where long he lived and thrived, in London dead.
Much good, some ill, he did; so hope all’s even,
And that his soul through mercy’s gone to Heaven.
You that survive, and read this tale, take care,
For this most certain exit to prepare,
Where, blest in peace, the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in the silent dust.
SELF-WRITTEN.
MATTHEW PRIOR’S.
Painters and heralds, by your leave,
Here lie the bones of Matthew Prior,
The son of Adam and of Eve:—
Let Bourbon or Nassau go higher!
It is said (and the statement appears highly probable) that Prior
borrowed his lines from the following very ancient epitaph upon a
tombstone in Scotland:—
John Carnagie lies here,
Descended from Adam and Eve;
If any can boast of a pedigree higher,
He will willingly give them leave.
COLERIDGE’S.
Stop, Christian passer-by! stop, child of God,
And read with gentle heart. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seemed he:—
O lift a thought in prayer for S. T. C.,
That he, who many a year with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here find life in death;
Mercy for praise, to be forgiven for fame,
He asked, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same!
JOHN BACON’S, TOTTENHAM COURT CHAPEL.
What I was as an Artist
Seemed to me of some importance
while I lived;
But what I really was as a believer
in Christ Jesus,
is the only thing of importance
to me now.
DR. COOPER’S, EDINBURGH.
Here lies a priest of English blood,
Who, living, liked whate’er was good,—
Good company, good wine, good name,
Yet never hunted after fame;
But as the first he still preferred,
So here he chose to be interred,
And, unobscured, from crowds withdrew
To rest among a chosen few,
In humble hopes that sovereign love
Will raise him to be blest above.
POPE ADRIAN’S.
Adrianus, Papa VI., hic situs est, que nihil sibi
Infelicius in vita, quam quod imperaret duxit.
SHEIL’S, (THE IRISH ORATOR).
Here lie I. There’s an end to my woes.
And my spirit at length at _aise_ is,
With the tip of my nose, and the ends of my toes,
Turned up ’gainst the roots of the daisies.
The eccentric Sternhold Oakes offered a reward for the best epitaph for
his grave. Several tried for the prize, but they flattered him too much,
he thought. At last he undertook it himself; and the following was the
result:—
Here lies the body of Sternhold Oakes,
Who lived and died like other folks.
That was satisfactory, and the old gentleman claimed the prize, which,
as he had the paying of it, was of course allowed.
MORALIZING AND ADMONITORY.
AT KENNEBUNK, MAINE.
Rev. Daniel Little, 1801.
Memento mori! preached his ardent youth,
Memento mori! spoke maturer years;
Memento mori! sighed his latest breath,
Memento mori! now this stone declares.
AT ANDOVER, MASS.
John Abbot, 1793, æt. 90.
Grass, smoke, a flower, a vapor, shade, a span,
Serve to illustrate the frail life of man;
And they, who longest live, survive to see
The certainty of death, of life the vanity.
IN LLANGOWEN CHURCHYARD, WALES.
Our life is but a summer’s day:
Some only breakfast, and away;
Others to dinner stay, and are full fed;
The oldest man but sups, and goes to bed.
Large his account, who lingers out the day;
Who goes the soonest, has the least to pay.
IN ST. SAVIOUR’S CHURCHYARD, SOUTHWARK.
Like to the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on the tree,
Or like the dainty flower of May,
Or like the morning of the day,
Or like the sun, or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonas had;
Even so is man, whose thread is spun,
Drawn out, and cut, and so is done.
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,
The flower fades, the morning hasteth:
The sun sets, the shadow flies,
The gourd consumes, and man he dies.
IN GILLINGHAM CHURCHYARD, ENG.
Take time in time while time doth last,
For time is not time when time is past.
GARRICK’S EPITAPH ON QUINN, ABBEY CHURCH, BATH.
Here lies James Quinn! Deign reader, to be taught,
Whate’er thy strength of body, force of thought,
In nature’s happiest mould however cast,
To this complexion thou must come at last.
IN NEWINGTON CHURCHYARD.
Through Christ, I am not inferior
To William the Conqueror.
IN LINCOLNSHIRE, ENGLAND.
Under this solitary sod
There lies a man
Whose ways were very odd:
Whatever his faults were,
Let them alone.
Let thy utmost care be
To mend thine own:
Let him without a sin
First cast a stone.
ADVERTISING INSCRIPTIONS AND NOTICES.
IN WILTSHIRE, ENGLAND.
Beneath this stone in hopes of Zion,
Is laid the landlord of the Lion.
Resigned unto the heavenly will,
His son keeps on the business still.
In the cemetery of Montmartre, a memorial to a Parisian tradesman,
killed in an émeute in the earlier part of the reign of Louis Phillippe,
concludes with this advertisement:—
This tomb was executed by his bereaved widow (_veuve_ désolée,) who
still carries on his business at No. — Rue St. Martin.
This announcement is from a Spanish journal:—
This morning our Saviour summoned away the jeweller Siebald Illmaga
from his shop to another and better world. The undersigned, his widow,
will weep upon his tomb, as will also his two daughters, Hilda and
Emma, the former of whom is married, and the latter is open to an
offer. The funeral will take place to-morrow. His disconsolate widow,
Veronique Illmaga. P. S.—This bereavement will not interrupt our
business, which will be carried on as usual, only our place of
business will be removed from No. 3, Tessi de Teinturiers, to No. 4
Rue de Missionaire, as our grasping landlord has raised our rent.
UNIQUE AND LUDICROUS EPITAPHS.
ON A CONNECTICUT MAN WITH A REMARKABLE TUMOR.
Our father lies beneath the sod,
His spirit’s gone unto his God;
We never more shall hear his tread,
_Nor see the wen upon his head_.
ON THE BELOVED PARTNER OF ROBERT KEMP.
She once was mine
But now, oh, Lord,
I her to Thee resign,
and remain your obedient, humble servant, Robert Kemp.
ON A MISER.
Here lies old Father Gripe, who never cried _Jam satis_;
’Twould wake him did he know you read his tombstone gratis.
REQUIESCAT IN PACE.
Here lies the body of Obadiah Wilkinson,
and Ruth, his wife:
Their warfare is accomplished.
ON MISS GWIN.
Here lies the body of Nancy Gwin,
Who was so very pure within,
She burst her outward shell of sin,
And hatched herself a cherubim.
Whether this, from a village churchyard, is an improvement on Young, is
a question:—
Death loves a shining mark,
and
_In this case he had it_.
EPITAPH FOR A GREAT TALKER.
Hic tacet—instead of hic jacet.
IN OTSEGO COUNTY, N. Y.
John burns.
(On this a commentator remarks, “Most men suffer enough above ground
without being bunglingly abused, _post mortem_, in ill-written
inscriptions which were at least intended to be civil. We suppose the
words were simply intended to record the man’s name; but they look
marvellously like a noun substantive coupled with a verb in the
indicative mood, and affording a sad indication that John _burns_.
There is no hint that John deserved the fate to which he appears to
have been consigned since his decease, and we can only say as we read
the startling declaration, we should be very sorry to believe it.”)
In the church of Stoke Holy Cross, near Norwich, Eng., is the following
epitaph:—
In the womb of this tomb twins in expectation lay,
To be born in the morn of the Resurrection day.
IN A CHURCHYARD IN CORNWALL.
Here lies the body of Gabriel John,
Who died in the year one thousand and one;
Pray for the soul of Gabriel John,
You may, if you please, or let it alone,
For it’s all one
To Gabriel John,
Who died in the year one thousand and one.
IN MORETON CHURCHYARD.
Here lies the bones of Roger Norton,
Whose sudden death was oddly brought on:
Trying one day his corns to mow off,
The razor slipt and cut his toe off!
The toe—or, rather, what it grew to—
An inflammation quickly flew to;
The part then took to mortifying,
Which was the cause of Roger’s dying.
ON A WOOD-CUTTER, OCKHAM, SURREY, 1736.
The Lord saw good, I was lopping off wood,
And down fell from the tree;
I met with a check, and I broke my neck,
And so death lopped off me.
A stone-cutter received the following epitaph from a German, to be cut
upon the tombstone of his wife:—
Mine vife Susan is dead, if she had life till nex friday she’d bin
dead shust two veeks. As a tree falls so must it stan, all tings is
impossible mit God.
IN CHILDWALL PARISH, ENGLAND.
Here lies me, and my three daughters,
Brought here by using Cheltenham waters.
If we had stuck to Epsom salts
We wouldn’t be in these here vaults.
AT OXFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
To all my friends I bid adieu,
A more sudden death you never knew,
As I was leading the old mare to drink,
She kicked, and killed me quicker’n a wink.
A SOUTH CAROLINA TRIBUTE TO DEPARTED WORTH.
Here lies the boddy of Robert Gordin,
Mouth almighty and teeth ackordin,
Stranger tread lightly over this wonder,
If he opens his mouth, you are gone by thunder.
ON AN EAST TENNESSEE LADY.
She lived a life of virtue, and died of the cholera morbus, caused by
eating green fruit, in hope of a blessed immortality, at the early age
of 21 years, 7 months and 16 days! Reader, ‘Go thou and do likewise.’
FROM SOLYHULL CHURCHYARD, WARWICKSHIRE.
The following epitaph was written by a certain Rev. Dr. Greenwood on his
wife, who died in childbirth. One hardly knows which to admire most,—the
merit of the couplet wherein he celebrates her courage and magnanimity
in preferring him to a lord or judge, or the sound advice with which he
closes.
Go, cruel Death, thou hast cut down
The fairest Greenwood in all this kingdom!
Her virtues and good qualities were such
That surely she deserved a lord or judge;
But her piety and humility
Made her prefer me, a Doctor in Divinity;
Which heroic action, joined to all the rest,
Made her to be esteemed the Phœnix of her sex;
And like that bird, a young she did create
To comfort those her loss had made disconsolate.
My grief for her was so sore
That I can only utter two lines more:
For this and all other good women’s sake,
Never let blisters be applied to a lying-in woman’s back.
Robert Baxter of Farhouse, who died in 1796, was believed to have been
poisoned by a neighbor with whom he had a violent quarrel. Baxter was
well known to be a man of voracious appetite; and it seems that one
morning, on going out to the fell, he found a piece of bread and butter
wrapped in white paper. This he incautiously devoured, and died a few
hours after in great agony. The following is inscribed on his tombstone,
Knaresdale, Northumberland:—
All you that please these lines to read,
It will cause a tender heart to bleed.
I murdered was upon the fell,
And by the man I knew full well;
By bread and butter which he’d laid,
I, being harmless, was betrayed.
_I hope he will rewarded be_
That laid the poison there for me.
IN DONCASTER CHURCHYARD, 1816.
Here lies 2 Brothers by misfortin serounded,
One dy’d of his wounds & the other was drownded.
AT SARAGOSSA, SPAIN.
Here lies John Quebecca, precentor to My Lord the King. When he is
admitted to the choir of angels, whose society he will embellish, and
where he will distinguish himself by his powers of song, God shall say
to the angels, “Cease, ye calves! and let me hear John Quebecca, the
precentor of My Lord the King!”
ROCHESTER’S EPITAPH ON CHARLES II.
Here lies our sovereign lord the king,
Whose word no man relied on;
Who never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one.
FROM A GRAVESTONE IN ESSEX, ENGLAND.
Here lies the man Richard,
And Mary his wife,
Whose surname was Pritchard:
They lived without strife;
And the reason was plain,—
They abounded in riches,
They had no care nor pain,
_And his wife wore the breeches_.
In All Saints’ Churchyard, Leicester, may be found the following on two
children of John Bracebridge, who were both named John and both died in
infancy:—
Both John and John soon lost their lives,
And yet, by God, John still survives.
Bishop Thurlow, at one of his visitations, had the words _by God_
altered to _through God_.
FROM THETFORD CHURCHYARD.
My grandfather was buried here,
My cousin Jane, and two uncles dear;
My father perished with inflammation in the thighs,
And my sister dropped down dead in the Minories:
But the reason why I’m here interred, according to my thinking,
Is owing to my good living and hard drinking.
If, therefore, good Christians, you wish to live long,
Don’t drink too much wine, brandy, gin, or any thing strong.
IN A CHURCHYARD IN ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND.
Here lies I, Martin Elmrod;
Have mercy on my soul, gude God,
As I would have on thine gin I were God,
And thou wert Martin Elmrod.
IN SWANSEA CHURCHYARD.
The body underneath this stone is
Of my late husband, Jacob Jonas,
Who, when alive, was an Adonis.
Ah! well-a-day!
O death! thou spoiler of fair faces,
Why tookst thou him from my embraces?
How couldst thou mar so many graces?
Say, tyrant, say.
AT NORTHALLERTON.
Hic jacet Walter Gun,
Sometime landlord of the _Sun_;
_Sic transit gloria mundi_!
He drank hard upon Friday,
That being a high day,
Then took to his bed, and died upon Sunday.
ALL SAINTS, NEWCASTLE.
Here lies poor Wallace,
The prince of good fellows,
Clerk of Allhallows,
And maker of bellows.
He bellows did make till the day of his death;
But he that made bellows could never make breath.
IN CALSTOCK CHURCHYARD, CORNWALL.
’Twas by a fall I caught my death;
No man can tell his time or breath;
I might have died as soon as then,
If I had had physician men.
ON GENERAL WOLFE.
On the death of General Wolfe, a premium was offered for the best
epitaph on that officer. One of the candidates for the prize sent a
poem, of which the following stanza is a specimen:—
He marched without dread or fears,
At the head of his bold grenadiers;
And what was more remarkable—nay, _very particular_—
He climbed up rocks that were perpendicular.
§REBECCA ROGERS, FOLKESTONE§, 1688.
A house she hath, ’tis made of such good fashion,
The tenant ne’er shall pay for reparation;
Nor will her landlord ever raise her rent,
Or turn her out of doors for non-payment:
From chimney-tax this cell’s forever free,—
To such a house, who would not tenant be?
IN DORCHESTER, MASS.
1661.
Heare lyes our captaine, and major of Suffolk was withall,
A godly magistrate was he, and major generall.
Two troops of hors with him here came, such worth his love did crave,
Ten companyes of foot also mourning marcht to his grave.
Let all that read be sure to keep the faith as he hath don;
With Christ he lives now crownd. His name was Humphry Atherton.
IN KNIGHTSBRIDGE CHURCHYARD.
On a man who was too poor to be buried with relations in the church:—
Here I lie at the chancel door,
And I lie here because I am poor;
For the further in, the more you pay,—
But here I lie as warm as they.
IN BIDEFORD CHURCHYARD, KENT.
The wedding-day appointed was,
And wedding-clothes provided,
But ere the day did come, alas!
He sickened, and he die did.
IN WHITTLEBURY CHURCHYARD, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
John Heath, 1767, æt. 27.
While Time doth run, from sin depart;
Let none e’er shun Death’s piercing dart;
For read and look, and you will see
A wondrous change was wrought on me.
For while I lived in joy and mirth,
Grim Death came in and stopped my breath;
For I was single in the morning light,
By noon was married, and was dead at night.
IN LONGNOR CHURCHYARD, STAFFORD.
William Billings, a soldier in the British army 75 years,
Died 1793, aged 114 years.
Billeted by death, I quartered here remain,
And when the trumpet sounds, I’ll rise and march again.
IN ROCHESTER CHURCHYARD, ENG.
Though young she was,
Her youth could not withstand,
Nor her protect
From Death’s impartial hand.
Life is a cobweb, be we e’er so gay,
And death a broom that sweeps us all away.
HUMPHREY COLE.
Here lies the body of good Humphrey Cole;
Though black his name, yet spotless is his soul;
But yet not black, though Carbo is the name,
Thy chalk is scarcely whiter than his fame.
A priest of priests, inferior was to none,
Took heaven by storm when here his race was run.
Thus ends the record of this pious man:
Go and do likewise, reader, if you can.
IN EAST HARTFORD, CONN.
Now she is dead and cannot stir;
Her cheeks are like the faded rose;
Which of us next shall follow her,
The Lord Almighty only knows.
Hark, she bids all her friends adieu;
An angel calls her to the spheres;
Our eyes the radiant saint pursue
Through liquid telescopes of tears.
ON A TOMBSTONE IN NEW JERSEY.
Reader, pass on!—don’t waste your time
On bad biography and bitter rhyme;
For what _I am_, this crumbling clay insures,
And what _I was_, is no affair of yours!
IN A NEW ENGLAND GRAVEYARD.
Here lies John Auricular,
Who in the ways of the Lord walked perpendicular.
* * * * *
Many a cold wind o’er my body shall roll,
While in Abraham’s bosom I’m a feasting my soul.
AT AUGUSTA, MAINE.
—After Life’s _Scarlet Fever_,
I sleep well.
The following illustrated epitaph is copied from a tombstone near
Williamsport, Pa.
[Illustration]
Sacred to the memory of
§Henry Harris§,
Born June 27th, 1821, of Henry Harris
and Jane his wife.
Died on the 4th of May, 1837, by the kick of a colt
in his bowels.
Peaceable and quiet, a friend to
his father and mother, and respected
by all who knew him, and went
to the world where horses
don’t kick, where sorrows and weeping
is no more.
In Dorchester, Mass. may be seen the following queer epitaph on a young
woman:—
On the 21st of March
God’s angels made a _sarche_.
Around the door they stood;
They took a maid,
It is said,
And cut her down like wood.
A Dutchman’s epitaph on his twin babes:—
Here lies two babes, dead as two nits,
Who shook to death mit aguey fits.
They was too good to live mit me,
So God he took ’em to live mit he.
MORTUARY PUNS.
Peter Comestor, whom the following epitaph represents as speaking, was
the author of a Commentary on the Scriptures. He died in 1198:—
I who was once called _Peter_ [a stone], am now covered by a _stone_
[_petra_]; and I who was once named _Comestor_ [devourer], am now
_devoured_. I taught when alive, nor do I cease to teach, though dead;
for he who beholds me reduced to ashes may say,—“This man was once
what we are now; and what he is now, we soon shall be.”
ON A YOUTH WHO DIED FOR LOVE OF MOLLY STONE.
Molle fuit saxum, saxum, O! si Molle fuisset,
Non foret hic subter, sed super esset ei.
Luttrell wrote the following on a man who was run over by an omnibus:—
Killed by an omnibus! Why not?
So quick a death a boon is:
Let not his friends lament his lot—
_Mors omnibus communis_.
WILLIAM MORE, STEPNEY CHURCHYARD.
Here lies _one More_, and _no more_ than he;
_One More_, and _no more_! how can that be?
Why _one More_ and _no more_, may lie here alone;
But here lies _one More_, and that’s _more_ than one!
On the tombstone of John Fell, superintendent of the turnpike-roads from
Kirby Kendal to Kirby Irleth, are the following lines:—
Reader, doth he not merit well thy praise,
Whose practice was through life to _mend his ways_?
IN SELBY CHURCHYARD, YORK.
This tombstone is a Milestone; ha, how so?
Because, beneath lies _Miles_, who’s Miles below.
ON DU BOIS, BORN IN A BAGGAGE-WAGON, AND KILLED IN A DUEL.
Begot in a cart, in a cart first drew breath,
Carte tierce was his life, and a carte was his death,
ON LILL.
Here lies the tongue of Godfrey Lill,
Which always lied, and _lies here still_.
On the tombstone of Dr. Walker, who wrote a work on “English Particles,”
is inscribed,—
Here lies Walker’s Particles.
Dr. Fuller’s reads,—
Here lies Fuller’s Earth.
And Archbishop Potter’s,—
Alack and well-a-day,
Potter himself is turned to clay.
Proposed by Jerrold for Charles Knight, the Shakspearian critic:—
Good Knight.
On a well-known Shakspearian actor:—
Exit Burbage.
On the tomb of an auctioneer at Greenwood:—
Going,—going,—§GONE§!
Miss Long was a beautiful actress of the last century, so short in
stature that she was called the Pocket Venus. Her epitaph concludes,—
Though Long, yet short;
Though short, yet _Pretty_ Long.
On the eminent barrister, Sir John Strange:—
Here lies an honest lawyer—that is _Strange_.
On William Button, in a churchyard near Salisbury:—
O sun, moon, stars, and ye celestial poles!
Are graves, then, dwindled into Button-holes?
On Foote, the comedian:—
Foote from his earthly stage, alas! is hurled;
Death took him off, who took off all the world.
In the chancel of the church of Barrow-on-Soar, Leicestershire, is the
following on Theophilus Cave:—
Here in this Grave there lies a Cave.
We call a Grave a Cave;
If Cave be Grave, and Grave be Cave,
Then, reader, judge, I crave,
Whether doth Cave here lye in Grave,
Or Grave here lye in Cave:
If Grave in Cave here bury’d lye,
Then Grave, where is thy victory?
Goe, reader, and report here lyes a Cave,
Who conquers Death and buries his own Grave.
The following, in Harrow Churchyard, is ascribed to Lord Byron:—
Beneath these green trees rising to the skies,
The planter of them, Isaac Greentree, lies;
A time shall come when these green trees shall fall,
And Isaac Greentree rise above them all.
ON THOMAS GREENHILL, OXFORDSHIRE, 1624.
He once a _Hill_ was fresh and _Green_,
Now withered is not to be seen;
Earth in earth shovelled up is shut,
A _Hill_ into a _Hole_ is put;
But darksome earth by Power Divine,
Bright at last as the sun may shine.
ON A CORONER WHO HANGED HIMSELF.
He lived and died
By _suicide_.
ON A CELEBRATED COOK.
Peace to his hashes.
ON MR. FISH.
Worms bait for fish; but here’s a sudden change;
Fish is bait for worms—is not that passing strange?
ON TWO CHILDREN.
To the memory of Emma and Maria Littleboy,
the twin-children of
George and Emma Littleboy of Hornsey,
who died July 16, 1783.
Two little boys lie here,
Yet strange to say,
These little boys are girls.
ON MISS NOTT.
Nott born, Nott dead, Nott christened, Nott begot;
So here she lies that was and that was Nott.
Reader behold a wonder rarely wrought,
Which while thou seem’st to read thou readest Nott.
ON MARY ANGEL, STEPNEY, 1693.
To say an angel here interred doth lie,
May be thought strange, for angels never die;
Indeed some fell from heaven to hell,
Are lost to rise no more;
This only fell from death to earth,
Not lost but gone before;
Her dust lodged here, her soul perfect in grace,
Among saints and angels now hath took its place.
Beloe, in his Anecdotes, gives the following on William Lawes, the
musical composer, who was killed by the Roundheads:—
Concord is conquered! In his turn there lies
The master of great Music’s mysteries;
And in it is a riddle, like the cause,
Will Lawes was slain by men whose _Wills_ were Laws.
ON MR. JOSEPH KING.
Here lies a man than whom no better’s _wal-king_,
Who was when sleeping even always _tal-king_;
A _king_ by birth was he, and yet was no king,
In life was _thin-king_, and in death was §Jo-King§.
_On John Adams, of Southwell, a carrier, who died of
drunkenness._—§Byron.§
John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell,
A _carrier_ who carried the can to his mouth well;
He carried so much, and he carried so fast,
He could carry no more,—so was carried at last;
For the liquor he drank being too much for one,
He could not carry off, so he’s now carri-on.
ON A LINEN-DRAPER.
Cottons and cambrics, all adieu,
And muslins too, farewell,
Plain, striped, and figured, old and new,
Three quarters, yard, or ell;
By nail and yard I’ve measured ye,
As customers inclined,
The churchyard now has measured me.
And nails my coffin bind.
ON A WOMAN WHO HAD AN ISSUE IN HER LEG.
Here lieth Margaret, otherwise Meg,
Who died without issue, save one in her leg.
Strange woman was she, and exceedingly cunning,
For while one leg stood still, the other kept running.
FROM LLANFLANTWYTHYL CHURCHYARD, WALES.
Under this stone lies Meredith Morgan,
Who blew the bellows of our church-organ;
Tobacco he hated, to smoke most unwilling,
Yet never so pleased as when pipes he was filling;
No reflection on him for rude speech could be cast,
Though he made our old organ give many a blast.
No puffer was he, though a capital blower,
He could fill double G, and now lies a note lower.
ON A LAST-MAKER.
Stop, stranger, stop, and wipe a tear,
For the _last_ man at _last_ lies here.
Though ever-_last_-ing he has been,
He has at _last_ passed life’s _last_ scene.
Famed for good works, much time he passed
In doing good,—he has done his _last_.
FROM ST. ANNE’S CHURCHYARD, ISLE OF MAN.
Daniel Tear, ob. Dec. 7, 1787, æt. 110 years.
Here, friend, is little Daniel’s tomb;
To Joseph’s age he did arrive,
Sloth killing thousands in their bloom,
While labor kept poor Dan alive.
Though strange, yet true, full seventy years
His wife was happy in her _Tears_.
In the Greek Anthology is a punning epitaph on a physician, by
Empedocles, who lived in the fifth century before Christ. The pun
consists in the derivation of the name _Pausanias_,—causing a cessation
of pain or affliction,—and therefore only a portion of the double
meaning can be preserved in a translation:—
_Paus_anias,—not so named without a cause,
As one who oft has given to pain a _pause_,—
Blest son of Esculapius, good and wise,
Here in his native Gela buried lies;
Who many a wretch once rescued by his charms
From dark Persephone’s constraining arms.
CURIOUS AND PUZZLING EPITAPHS.
On the monument of Sardanapalus was inscribed, in Assyrian characters,—
ΕΣΤΗΙΕ, ΠΙΝΕ, ΠΑΙΖΕ. ὩΣ ΤΑΛΛΑ ΤΟΥΤΟΥ ΟΥΚ ΑΞΙΑ
EAT, DRINK, BE MERRY. THE REST IS NOT WORTH THAT!
meaning _a snap of the fingers_, which is represented by a hand engraved
on the stone, with the thumb and middle finger meeting at the top.
Casaubon translates παιζειν, _to love_ (παιζειν nihil aliud significat
nisi ερᾶν). Solomon said, _all is vanity_, but not till he had _eaten,
drunk, and loved_ to a surfeit; and Swift left the well-known lines,—
Life’s a farce, and all things show it,
I thought so once, but now I know it,—
but this information was for the tomb, when the capacity to eat, drink,
and love was gone.
* * * * *
At the entrance of the church of San Salvador, in the city of Oviedo, in
Spain, is a remarkable tomb, erected by a prince named _Silo_, with a
very curious Latin inscription, which may be read two hundred and
seventy ways, by beginning with the capital S in the centre:—
§Silo Princeps Fecit.§
T I C E F S P E C N C E P S F E C I T
I O E F S P E C N I N C E P S F E C I
C E F S P E C N I R I N C E P C F E C
E F S P E C N I R P R I N C E P S F E
F S P E C N I R P O P R I N C E P S F
S P E C N I R P O L O P R I N C E P S
P E C N I R P O L I L O P R I N C E P
E C N I R P O L I =S= I L O P R I N C E
P E C N I R P O L I L O P R I N C E P
S P E C N I R P O L O P R I N C E P S
F S P E C N I R P O P R I N C E P S F
E F S P E C N I R P R I N C E P S F E
C E F S P E C N I R I N C E P S F E C
I C E F S P E C N I N C E P S F E C I
T I C E F S P E C N C E P S F E C I T
On the tomb are inscribed these letters:—
H. S. E. S. S. T. T. L.
Which are the initials of the following Latin words:—
Hic situs est Silo, sit tibi terra levis.
[Here lies Silo. May the earth lie lightly upon him.]
FROM ST. AGNES’, LONDON.
Qu an tris di c vul stra
os guis ti ro um nere vit.
H san chris mi t mu la
The middle line furnishes the terminal letters or syllables of the words
in the upper and lower lines, and when added they read thus:—
Quos anguis tristi diro cum vulnere stravit
Hos sanguis Christi miro tum munere lavit.
[Those who have felt the serpent’s venomed wound
In Christ’s miraculous blood have healing found.]
FROM A CHURCHYARD IN GERMANY.
O quid tua te
be bis bia abit
ra ra ra
es
et in
ram ram ram
i i
Mox eris quod ego nunc.
Taking the position of the words in the first line, which are placed
_above_ or _over_ (super) those in the second, and noting the repetition
of the syllables _ra_ and _ram_ thrice (ter), and the letter _i_ twice
(bis), the reading is easy.
O _super_be quid _super_bis? tua _super_bia te _super_abit. _Ter_ra es
et in _ter_ram i_bis_. Mox eris quod ego nunc.
FROM CUNWALLOW CHURCHYARD, CORNWALL.
(May be read backwards or forwards, up or down.)
Shall we all die?
We shall die all,
All die shall we,—
Die all we shall.
FROM LAVENHAM CHURCH, NORFOLK, ENG.
John Weles, ob. 1694.
Quod fuit esse, quod est;
Quod non fuit esse, quod esse;
Esse quod est, non est;
Quod non est, hoc erit esse.
[What was existence, is that which lies here; that which was not
existence, is that which is existence; to be what is now is not to be;
that which is now, is not existence, but will be hereafter.]
Or thus:—
That which a being was, what is it? show;
That being which it was, it is not now;
To be what is, is not to be, you see;
That which now is not shall a being be.
ON THE MONUMENT OF JOHN OF DONCASTER, 1579.
Habeo, dedi quod alteri;
Habuique quod, dedi mihi;
Sed quod reliqui, perdidi.
[What I gave, I have;
What I spent, I had;
What I saved, I lost.]
IN THE CHURCHYARD OF LLANGERRIG, MONTGOMERYSHIRE.
O } { O } { observe this well,—
That } Earth { to } Earth { shall come to dwell;
Then } { in } { shall close remain,
Till } { from } { shall rise again.
IN HADLEY CHURCHYARD, SUFFOLK.
The charnel mounted on the w }
Sets to be seen in funer }
A matron plain domestic }
In care and pain continu }
Not slow, not gay, not prodig } §ALL§.
Yet neighborly and hospit }
Her children seven, yet living }
Her sixty-seventh year hence did c }
To rest her body natur }
In hopes to rise spiritu }
WRITTEN IN 1748.
Ye witty mortals, as you’re passing by,
Remark that near this monument doth lie,
Centered in dust,
Two husbands, two wives,
Two sisters, two brothers,
Two fathers, a son,
Two daughters, two mothers,
A grandfather, grandmother, and a granddaughter,
An uncle, an aunt, and their niece followed after.
This catalogue of persons mentioned here
Was only _five_, and all from incest clear.
IN ST. PAUL’S, DEPTFORD.
Rev. Dr. Conyers expired immediately after the delivery of a sermon from
the text, “Ye shall see my face no more,” æt. 62, 1786.
Sent by their Lord on purposes of grace,
Thus angels do his will, and see his face;
With outspread wings they stand, prepared to soar,
Declare their message, and are seen no more.
Underneath is a Latin inscription, of which the following is a
translation:—
I have sinned,
I repented, I believed,
I have loved, I rest,
I shall rise again,
And by the grace of Christ,
However unworthy,
I shall reign.
PARALLELS WITHOUT A PARALLEL.
AT WINCHESTER, ENG.
On the north side of this church is the monument of two brothers of
the surname Clarke, wherewith I was so taken as take them I must; and
as I found them I pray accept them.
Thus an union of two brothers from Avington, the Clarkes’ family, were
grandfather, father, and son, successivelie _clerkes_ of the Privy
Seale in Court.
The grandfather had but two sons, both Thomas.
Their wives both Amys,
Their heyres both Henry,
And the heyres of Henries both Thomas.
Both their wives were inheritrixes,
And both had two sons and one daughter.
And both their daughters issuelesse.
Both of Oxford; both of the Temple;
Both officers to Queen Elizabeth and o^r noble King James.
And both Justices of the Peace.
Togeather both agree in armes, one a knight, y^e other a captain.
Si quæras plura; both—; and so I leave y^m.
BATHOS.
HOWELL’S EPITAPH ON CHARLES I.
So fell the royal oak by a wild crew
Of mongrel shrubs, that underneath him grew;
So fell the lion by a pack of curs;
So the rose withered ’twixt a knot of burs;
So fell the eagle by a swarm of gnats;
So the whale perished by a shoal of sprats!
TRANSCENDENTAL.
FROM THE CHURCHYARD OF ST. EDMUND’S, SALISBURY.
Written by a Swedenborgian named Maton, on his children.
Innocence embellishes divinely complete
To prescience co-egent now sublimely great
In the benign, perfecting, vivifying state.
So heavenly guardian occupy the skies
The pre-existent God, omnipotent, all-wise;
He shall surpassingly immortalize thy theme
And permanent thy bliss, celestial, supreme.
When gracious refulgence bids the grave resign,
The Creator’s nursing protection be thine;
Then each perspiring ether shall joyfully rise
Transcendently good, supereminently wise.
CENTO.
AT NORTHBOROUGH, MASS.
On the tombstone of Rabbi Judah Monis, 40 years Hebrew Instructor in
Harvard University, who was converted to Christianity in 1722, and died
in 1764.
A native branch of Jacob see,
Which once from off its olive broke;
Regrafted from the living tree, Rom. xi. 17, 24.
Of the reviving sap partook.
From teeming Zion’s fertile womb, Isa. lxvi. 8.
As dewy drops in early morn, Ps. cx. 3.
Or rising bodies from the tomb, John v. 28, 29.
At once be Israel’s nation born. Isa. lxvi. 8.
ACROSTICAL.
AT DORCHESTER, MASS.
James Humphrey, 1686.
I nclosed within this shrine is precious dust,
A nd only waits the rising of the just;
M ost useful while he lived, adorned his station,
E ven to old age served his generation,
S ince his decease thought of with veneration.
H ow great a blessing this ruling elder he
U nto this church and town and pastors three!
M ather, the first, did by him help receive;
F lint he did next his burden much relieve;
R enowned Danforth did he assist with skill,
E steemed high by all, bear fruit until,
Y ielding to death, his glorious seat did fill.
IN ASH CHURCH, KENT.
©J© John Brooke of the Parish of Ashe,
©O© Only he is nowe gone,
©H© His days are past; his corps is layd
©N© Now under this marble stone.
©B© Brookstrete he was the honor of,
©R© Robd now it is of name,
©O© Only because he had no sede
©O© Or children to have the same;
©K© Knowing that all must pass away,
©E© Even when God will, none can denay.
He passed to God in the yere of Grace
One thousand fyve hundredth fower score and two it was,
The sixteenth daye of January, I tell now playne,
The fyve and twentieth yere of Elizabeth rayne.
ABORIGINAL.
IN THE MOHEAGAN BURIAL-GROUND, CONN.
Here lies the body of §Sunseeto§,
Own son to Uncas, grandson to Oneeko,
Who were the famous sachems of Moheagan,
But now they are all dead, I think it is _werheegen_.[29]
Footnote 29:
Meaning, _All is well, or good news_.
ORONO, CHIEF OF THE PENOBSCOTS, OLDTOWN, MAINE, 1801, ÆT. 113
Safe lodged within his blanket, here below,
Lie the last relics of old §Orono§;
Worn down with toil and care, he in a trice
Exchanged his wigwam for a paradise.
AFRICAN.
AT CONCORD, MASS.
God wills us free; man wills us slaves. I will as God wills: God’s
will be done. Here lies the body of §John Jack§, a native of Africa,
who died, March, 1773, aged about 60 years. Though born in a land of
slavery, he was born free; though he lived in a land of liberty, he
lived a slave, till, by his honest though stolen labors, he acquired
the source of slavery, which gave him his freedom, though not long
before death, the grand tyrant, gave him his final emancipation, and
set him on a footing with kings. Though a slave to vice, he practised
those virtues, without which, kings are but slaves.
AT ATTLEBORO, MASS.
Here lies the best of slaves,
Now turning into dust.
Cesar, the Ethiopian, craves
A place among the just.
His faithful soul is fled
To realms of heavenly light;
And by the blood that Jesus shed,
Is changed from black to white
January 15, he quitted the stage,
In the 77th year of his age.
HIBERNIAN.
AT BELTURBET.
Here lies John Higley, whose father and mother were
drowned in their passage from America.
Had they both _lived, they would have been buried here_.(!)
* * * * *
Here lies the body of John Mound,
Lost at sea and never found.
* * * * *
O cruel Death! how could you be so unkind,
To take him before and leave me behind?
You should have taken both of us if either;
Which would have been more pleasing to the survivor!
* * * * *
Here lies father and mother, and sister and I,—
They all died within the short space of one year.
They all be buried at Wimble but I,
And I be buried here.
AT MONKNEWTON, NEAR DROGHEDA.
Erected by Patrick Kelly,
Of the town of Drogheda, Mariner,
In Memory of his Posterity.
Also the above Patrick Kelly,
Who departed this Life the 12th August 1844,
Age 60 years,
Requiescat in pace.
AT MONTROSE, 1757.
Here lyes the Bodeys of George Young and Isabel Guthrie, and all their
Posterity for more than fifty years backwards.
AT ST. ANDREW’S, PLYMOUTH.
Here lies the body of James Vernon, Esq., only _surviving_ son of
Admiral Vernon: died 23rd July 1753.
AT LLANMYNECH, MONTGOMERYSHIRE.
Here lies John Thomas
And his children dear;
Two buried at Oswestry,
And one here.
IN OXFORDSHIRE.
Here lies the body of John Eldred,
At least he will be here when he is dead;
But now at this time he is alive,
The 14th of August ’sixty-five.
GREEK EPITAPHS.
Christopher North, speaking of the celebrated epitaph written by
Simonides and graved on the monument erected in commemoration of the
battle of Thermopylæ, says:—The oldest and best inscription is that on
the altar-tomb of the Three Hundred. Here it is,—the Greek,—with three
Latin and eighteen English versions. Start not: it is but two lines; and
all Greece, for centuries, had them by heart. She forgot them, and
“Greece was living Greece no more!”
Of the various English translations of this celebrated epitaph, the
following are the best:—
O stranger, tell it to the Lacedæmonians,
That we lie here in obedience to their precepts.
Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
ON MILTIADES.
Miltiades! thy valor best
(Although in every region known)
The men of Persia can attest,
Taught by thyself at Marathon.
ON THE TOMB OF THEMISTOCLES.
By the sea’s margin, on the watery strand,
Thy monument, Themistocles, shall stand.
By this directed to thy native shore,
The merchant shall convey his freighted store;
And when our fleets are summoned to the fight,
Athens shall conquer with this tomb in sight.
ON ÆSIGENES.
Hail, universal mother! lightly rest
On that dead form
Which when with life invested ne’er opprest
Its fellow-worm.
ON TIMOCRITUS.
Timocritus adorns this humble grave;
Mars spares the coward, and destroys the brave.
ON THREE NEIGHBORING TOMBS.
This is a sailor’s—that a ploughman’s tomb;—
Thus sea and land abide one common doom.
* * * * *
My lot was meagre fare, disease and shame.
At length I died—you all must do the same.
* * * * *
Fortune and Hope, farewell! I’ve found the port:
You’ve done with me—go now, with others sport.
HELIODORA.
Tears, Heliodora! on thy tomb I shed,
Love’s last libation to the shades below;
Tears, bitter tears, by fond remembrance fed,
Are all that Fate now leaves me to bestow.