(Vol. vii., p. 178.)
The following is a _real_ epitaph. It was written by Dr. Greenwood on his
wife, who died in childbed, and it is in all probability still to be seen,
where it was originally set up, in Solyhull churchyard, Warwickshire. The
most amusing point in it is, that the author seriously intended the lines
to rhyme. There is wonderful merit in the couplet where he celebrates her
courage and magnanimity in preferring him to a lord or judge:
"Which heroic action, join'd to all the rest,
Made her to be esteem'd the Phoenix of her sex!"
"Go, cruel Death, thou hast cut down
The fairest Greenwood in all this kingdom!
Her virtues and her good qualities were such
That surely she deserved a lord or judge:
But her piety and great humility
Made her prefer me, a Doctor in Divinity;
Which heroic action, join'd to all the rest,
Made her to be esteem'd the Phoenix 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 woman's sake,
Never let blisters be applied to a lying-in woman's back."
The advice contained in the last couplet is sound.