Stockwell.
* * * * *
Minor Notes.
_Curious Epitaph._--In the _Diary of Thomas Moore_, Charles Lamb is said
at a certain dinner party to have "quoted an epitaph by Clio Rickman, in
which, after several lines in the usual jog-trot style of epitaph, he
continued thus:
'He well perform'd the husband's, father's part,
And knew immortal Hudibras by heart.'"
There is an epitaph in the churchyard of Newhaven, Sussex, in which
the last of these two lines occurs, but which does not answer in other
respects to the character of the one quoted by Lamb. On the contrary,
it is altogether eminently quaint, peculiar, and consistent. The stone
is to the memory of Thomas Tipper, who departed this life May the 14th,
1785, aged fifty-four years; and the upper part is embellished with a
representation, in bas-relief, of the drawbridge which crosses the river,
whence it might be inferred that the comprehensive genius of Mr. Tipper
included engineering and architecture. The epitaph runs thus:
"Reader, with kind regard this grave survey,
Nor heedless pass where Tipper's ashes lay.
Honest he was, ingenuous, blunt and kind,
And dared do what few dare do--speak his mind.
Philosophy and History well he knew,
Was versed in Physick and in Surgery too:
The best old Stingo he both brew'd and sold,
Nor did one knavish act to get his gold.
He play'd through life a varied comic part,
And knew immortal Hudibras by heart.
Reader, in real truth this was the man:
Be better, wiser, laugh more if you can."
Is there any reason for supposing this epitaph to have been written by
Clio Rickman; and is anything known of Mr. Tipper beyond the biography of
his tombstone?