A Village Church-yard, lying as it does in the lap of Nature, may
indeed be most favourably contrasted with that of a Town of crowded
Population; and Sepulture therein combines many of the best tendencies
which belong to the mode practised by the Ancients, with others
peculiar to itself. The sensations of pious cheerfulness, which attend
the celebration of the Sabbath-day in rural places, are profitably
chastised by the sight of the Graves of Kindred and Friends, gathered
together in that general Home towards which the thoughtful yet happy
Spectators themselves are journeying. Hence a Parish Church, in the
stillness of the Country, is a visible centre of a community of the
living and the dead; a point to which are habitually referred the
nearest concerns of both.
As, then, both in Cities and in Villages, the Dead are deposited in
close connection with our places of worship, with us the composition
of an Epitaph naturally turns, still more than among the Nations of
Antiquity, upon the most serious and solemn affections of the human
mind; upon departed Worth--upon personal or social Sorrow and
Admiration--upon Religion, individual and social--upon Time, and upon
eternity. Accordingly it suffices, in ordinary cases, to secure a
composition of this kind from censure, that it contains nothing that
shall shock or be inconsistent with this spirit. But to entitle an
Epitaph to praise, more than this is necessary. It ought to contain
some Thought or Feeling belonging to the mortal or immortal part of
our Nature touchingly expressed; and if that be done, however general
or even trite the sentiment may be, every man of pure mind will read
the words with pleasure and gratitude. A Husband bewails a Wife; a
Parent breathes a sigh of disappointed hope over a lost Child; a Son
utters a sentiment of filial reverence for a departed Father or
Mother; a Friend perhaps inscribes an encomium recording the
companionable qualities, or the solid virtues, of the Tenant of the
Grave, whose departure has left a sadness upon his memory. This, and a
pious admonition to the Living, and a humble expression of Christian
confidence in Immortality, is the language of a thousand Church-yards;
and it does not often happen that any thing, in a greater degree
discriminate or appropriate to the Dead or to the Living, is to be
found in them. This want of discrimination has been ascribed by Dr.
Johnson, in his Essay upon the Epitaphs of Pope, to two causes; first,
the scantiness of the Objects of human praise; and, secondly, the want
of variety in the Characters of Men; or, to use his own words, "to the
fact, that the greater part of Mankind have no character at all." Such
language may be holden without blame among the generalities of common
conversation; but does not become a Critic and a Moralist speaking
seriously upon a serious Subject. The objects of admiration in
Human-nature are not scanty, but abundant; and every Man has a
Character of his own, to the eye that has skill to perceive it. The
real cause of the acknowledged want of discrimination in sepulchral
memorials is this: That to analyse the Characters of others,
especially of those whom we love, is not a common or natural
employment of Men at any time. We are not anxious unerringly to
understand the constitution of the Minds of those who have soothed,
who have cheered, who have supported us: with whom we have been long
and daily pleased or delighted. The affections are their own
justification. The Light of Love in our Hearts is a satisfactory
evidence that there is a body of worth in the minds of our friends or
kindred, whence that Light has proceeded. We shrink from the thought
of placing their merits and defects to be weighed against each other
in the nice balance of pure intellect; nor do we find much temptation
to detect the shades by which a good quality or virtue is
discriminated in them from an excellence known by the same general
name as it exists in the mind of another; and, least of all, do we
incline to these refinements when under the pressure of Sorrow,
Admiration, or Regret, or when actuated by any of those feelings which
incite men to prolong the memory of their Friends and Kindred, by
records placed in the bosom of the all-uniting and equalizing
Receptacle of the Dead.
The first requisite, then, in an Epitaph is, that it should speak, in
a tone which shall sink into the heart, the general language of
humanity as connected with the subject of Death--the source from which
an Epitaph proceeds; of death and of life. To be born and to die are
the two points in which all men feel themselves to be in absolute
coincidence. This general language may be uttered so strikingly as to
entitle an Epitaph to high praise; yet it cannot lay claim to the
highest unless other excellencies be superadded. Passing through all
intermediate steps, we will attempt to determine at once what these
excellencies are, and wherein consists the perfection of this species
of composition. It will be found to lie in a due proportion of the
common or universal feeling of humanity to sensations excited by a
distinct and clear conception, conveyed to the Reader's mind, of the
Individual, whose death is deplored and whose memory is to be
preserved; at least of his character as, after Death, it appeared to
those who loved him and lament his loss. The general sympathy ought to
be quickened, provoked, and diversified, by particular thoughts,
actions, images,--circumstances of age, occupation, manner of life,
prosperity which the Deceased had known, or adversity to which he had
been subject; and these ought to be bound together and solemnized into
one harmony by the general sympathy. The two powers should temper,
restrain, and exalt each other. The Reader ought to know who and what
the Man was whom he is called to think upon with interest. A distinct
conception should be given (implicitly where it can, rather than
explicitly) of the Individual lamented. But the Writer of an Epitaph
is not an Anatomist who dissects the internal frame of the mind; he is
not even a Painter who executes a portrait at leisure and in entire
tranquillity: his delineation, we must remember, is performed by the
side of the Grave; and, what is more, the grave of one whom he loves
and admires. What purity and brightness is that virtue clothed in, the
image of which must no longer bless our living eyes! The character of
a deceased Friend or beloved Kinsman is not seen, no--nor ought to be
seen, otherwise than as a Tree through a tender haze or a luminous
mist, that spiritualizes and beautifies it; that takes away indeed,
but only to the end that the parts which are not abstracted may appear
more dignified and lovely, may impress and affect the more. Shall we
say, then, that this is not truth, not a faithful image; and that
accordingly the purposes of commemoration cannot be answered?--It _is_
truth, and of the highest order! for, though doubtless things are not
apparent which did exist; yet, the object being looked at through this
medium, parts and proportions are brought into distinct view, which
before had been only imperfectly or unconsciously seen: it is truth
hallowed by love--the joint offspring of the worth of the Dead and the
affections of the Living?--This may easily be brought to the test. Let
one, whose eyes have been sharpened by personal hostility to discover
what was amiss in the character of a good man, hear the tidings of his
death, and what a change is wrought in a moment!--Enmity melts away;
and, as it disappears, unsightliness, disproportion, and deformity,
vanish; and, through the influence of commiseration, a harmony of love
and beauty succeeds. Bring such a Man to the Tombstone on which shall
be inscribed an Epitaph on his Adversary, composed in the spirit which
we have recommended. Would he turn from it as from an idle tale!
No--the thoughtful look, the sigh, and perhaps the involuntary tear,
would testify that it had a sane, a generous, and good meaning; and
that on the Writer's mind had remained an impression which was a true
abstract of the character of the deceased; that his gifts and graces
were remembered in the simplicity in which they ought to be
remembered. The composition and quality of the mind of a virtuous man,
contemplated by the side of the Grave where his body is mouldering,
ought to appear, and be felt as something midway between what he was
on Earth walking about with his living frailties, and what he may be
presumed to be as a Spirit in Heaven.
It suffices, therefore, that the Trunk and the main Branches of the
Worth of the Deceased be boldly and unaffectedly represented. Any
further detail, minutely and scrupulously pursued, especially if this
be done with laborious and antithetic discriminations, must inevitably
frustrate its own purpose; forcing the passing Spectator to this
conclusion,--either that the Dead did not possess the merits ascribed
to him, or that they who have raised a monument to his memory, and
must therefore be supposed to have been closely connected with him,
were incapable of perceiving those merits; or at least during the act
of composition had lost sight of them; for, the Understanding having
been so busy in its petty occupation, how could the heart of the
Mourner be other than cold? and in either of these cases, whether the
fault be on the part of the buried Person or the Survivors, the
Memorial is unaffecting and profitless.
Much better is it to fall short in discrimination than to pursue it
too far, or to labour it unfeelingly. For in no place are we so much
disposed to dwell upon those points, of nature and condition, wherein
all Men resemble each other, as in the Temple where the universal
Father is worshipped, or by the side of the Grave which gathers all
Human Beings to itself, and "equalizes the lofty and the low." We
suffer and we weep with the same heart; we love and are anxious for
one another in one spirit; our hopes look to the same quarter; and the
virtues by which we are all to be furthered and supported, as
patience, meekness, good-will, temperance, and temperate desires, are
in an equal degree the concern of us all. Let an Epitaph, then,
contain at least these acknowledgments to our common nature; nor let
the sense of their importance be sacrificed to a balance of opposite
qualities or minute distinctions in individual character; which if
they do not, (as will for the most part be the case) when examined,
resolve themselves into a trick of words, will, even when they are
true and just, for the most part be grievously out of place; for, as
it is probable that few only have explored these intricacies of human
nature, so can the tracing of them be interesting only to a few. But
an Epitaph is not a proud Writing shut up for the studious; it is
exposed to all, to the wise and the most ignorant; it is
condescending, perspicuous, and lovingly solicits regard; its story
and admonitions are brief, that the thoughtless, the busy, and
indolent, may not be deterred, nor the impatient tired; the stooping
old Man cons the engraven record like a second horn-book;--the Child
is proud that he can read it--and the Stranger is introduced by its
mediation to the company of a Friend: it is concerning all, and for
all:--in the Churchyard it is open to the day; the sun looks down upon
the stone, and the rains of Heaven beat against it.
Yet, though the Writer who would excite sympathy is bound in this case
more than in any other, to give proof that he himself has been moved,
it is to be remembered, that to raise a Monument is a sober and a
reflective act; that the inscription which it bears is intended to be
permanent, and for universal perusal; and that, for this reason, the
thoughts and feelings expressed should be permanent also--liberated
from that weakness and anguish of sorrow which is in nature
transitory, and which with instinctive decency retires from notice.
The passions should be subdued, the emotions controlled; strong
indeed, but nothing ungovernable or wholly involuntary. Seemliness
requires this, and truth requires it also: for how can the Narrator
otherwise be trusted? Moreover, a Grave is a tranquillizing object:
resignation in course of time springs up from it as naturally as the
wild flowers, besprinkling the turf with which it may be covered, or
gathering round the monument by which it is defended. The very form
and substance of the monument which has received the inscription, and
the appearance of the letters, testifying with what a slow and
laborious hand they must have been engraven, might seem to reproach
the Author who had given way upon this occasion to transports of mind,
or to quick turns of conflicting passion; though the same might
constitute the life and beauty of a funeral Oration or elegiac Poem.
These sensations and judgments, acted upon perhaps unconsciously, have
been one of the main causes why Epitaphs so often personate the
Deceased, and represent him as speaking from his own Tombstone. The
departed Mortal is introduced telling you himself that his pains are
gone; that a state of rest is come; and he conjures you to weep for
him no longer. He admonishes with the voice of one experienced in the
vanity of those affections which are confined to earthly objects, and
gives a verdict like a superior Being, performing the office of a
Judge, who has no temptations to mislead him, and whose decision
cannot but be dispassionate. Thus is Death disarmed of its sting, and
affliction unsubstantialized. By this tender fiction, the Survivors
bind themselves to a sedater sorrow, and employ the intervention of
the imagination in order that the reason may speak her own language
earlier than she would otherwise have been enabled to do. This shadowy
interposition also harmoniously unites the two worlds of the Living
and the Dead by their appropriate affections. And I may observe, that
here we have an additional proof of the propriety with which
sepulchral inscriptions were referred to the consciousness of
Immortality as their primal source.
I do not speak with a wish to recommend that an Epitaph should be cast
in this mould preferably to the still more common one, in which what
is said comes from the Survivors directly; but rather to point out how
natural those feelings are which have induced men, in all states and
ranks of Society, so frequently to adopt this mode. And this I have
done chiefly in order that the laws, which ought to govern the
composition of the other, may be better understood. This latter mode,
namely, that in which the Survivors speak in their own Persons, seems
to me upon the whole greatly preferable: as it admits a wider range of
notices; and, above all, because, excluding the fiction which is the
groundwork of the other, it rests upon a more solid basis.
Enough has been said to convey our notion of a perfect Epitaph; but it
must be observed that one is meant which will best answer the
_general_ ends of that species of composition. According to the course
pointed out, the worth of private life, through all varieties of
situation and character, will be most honourably and profitably
preserved in memory. Nor would the model recommended less suit public
Men, in all instances save of those persons who by the greatness of
their services in the employments of Peace or War, or by the
surpassing excellence of their works in Art, Literature, or Science,
have made themselves not only universally known, but have filled the
heart of their Country with everlasting gratitude. Yet I must here
pause to correct myself. In describing the general tenour of thought
which Epitaphs ought to hold, I have omitted to say, that, if it be
the _actions_ of a Man, or even some _one_ conspicuous or beneficial
act of local or general utility, which have distinguished him, and
excited a desire that he should be remembered, then, of course, ought
the attention to be directed chiefly to those actions or that act; and
such sentiments dwelt upon as naturally arise out of them or it.
Having made this necessary distinction, I proceed.--The mighty
benefactors of mankind, as they are not only known by the immediate
Survivors, but will continue to be known familiarly to latest
Posterity, do not stand in need of biographic sketches, in such a
place; nor of delineations of character to individualize them. This is
already done by their Works, in the Memories of Men. Their naked names
and a grand comprehensive sentiment of civic Gratitude, patriotic
Love, or human Admiration; or the utterance of some elementary
Principle most essential in the constitution of true Virtue; or an
intuition, communicated in adequate words, of the sublimity of
intellectual Power,--these are the only tribute which can here be
paid--the only offering that upon such an Altar would not be unworthy!
What needs my Shakspeare for his honoured bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones,
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a starry-pointing pyramid?
Dear Son of Memory, great Heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a live-long Monument,
And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.
_Wordsworth._