This Tablet is here placed by a voluntary subscription of those who
admired and esteemed her. She retired from the stage, of which she had
long been the ornament, in the month of April, 1768: and died at Bath
in the month of August following, in the 57th year of her age.
Her comic vein had every charm to please,
'Twas nature's dictates breath'd with nature's ease;
Ev'n when her powers sustain'd the tragic load,
Full, clear, and just, the harmonious accents flow'd,
And the big passions of her feeling heart
Burst freely forth, and show'd the mimic art.
Oft, on the scene, with colours not her own,
She painted vice, and taught us what to shun;
One virtuous tract her real life pursu'd,
That nobler part was uniformly good;
Each duty there to such perfection wrought,
That, if the precepts fail'd, the example taught.
On a comedian named John Hippisley, interred in the churchyard of Clifton,
Gloucestershire, we have the following:--
When the Stage heard that death had struck her John,
Gay Comedy her Sables first put on;
Laughter lamented that her Fav'rite died,
And Mirth herself, ('tis strange) laid down and cry'd.
Wit droop'd his head, e'en Humour seem'd to mourn,
And solemnly sat pensive o'er his urn.
Garrick's epitaph to the memory of James Quin, in Bath Cathedral, is very
fine:--
That tongue, which set the table in a roar,
And charm'd the public ear, is heard no more;
Closed are those eyes, the harbingers of wit,
Which spoke, before the tongue, what Shakespeare writ;
Cold are those hands, which, living, were stretch'd forth,
At friendship's call, to succour modest worth.
Here is JAMES QUIN! 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."
We next give an actor's epitaph on an artist. In Chiswick churchyard is
Garrick's epitaph on William Hogarth, (died Oct. 29, 1764, aged 67 years)
as follows:--
Farewell, great painter of mankind,
Who reach'd the noblest point of art,
Whose pictured morals charm the mind,
And thro' the eye correct the heart.
If genius fire thee, reader, stay;
If nature touch thee, drop a tear;
If neither move thee, turn away,
For HOGARTH'S honour'd dust lies here.
No marble pomp, or monumental praise,
My tomb, this dial--epitaph, these lays;
Pride and low mouldering clay but ill agree;
Death levels me to beggars--Kings to me.
Alive, instruction was my work each day;
Dead, I persist instruction to convey;
Here, reader, mark, perhaps now in thy prime,
The stealthy steps of _never-standing Time_:
Thou'lt be what I am--catch the present hour,
Employ that well, for that's within thy power.
In St. Mary's Church, Beverley, a tablet is placed in remembrance of a
notable Yorkshire actor:--
In Memory of
SAMUEL BUTLER,
A poor player that struts and
frets his hour upon the stage, and
then is heard no more.
Obt. June 15th 1812,
Æt. 62.
Butler's gifted son, Samuel William, was buried in Ardwick cemetery,
Manchester. A gravestone placed to his memory bears the following eloquent
inscription by Charles Swain:--
Here rest the
mortal remains of
SAMUEL WILLIAM BUTLER,
Tragedian.
In him the stage lost a highly-gifted and accomplished actor,
one whose tongue the noblest creations
of the poet found truthful utterance.
After long and severe suffering he departed
this life the 17th day of July, in the year of
our Lord 1845. Aged 41 years.
Whence this ambition, whence this proud desire,
This love of fame, this longing to aspire?
To gather laurels in their greenest bloom,
To honour life and sanctify the tomb?
'Tis the Divinity that never dies,
Which prompts the soul of genius still to rise.
Though fade the Laurel, leaf by leaf away,
The soul hath prescience of a fadeless day;
And God's eternal promise, like a star,
From faded hopes still points to hopes afar;
Where weary hearts for consolation trust,
And bliss immortal quickens from the dust.
On this great hope, the painter, actor, bard,
And all who ever strove for Fame's reward,
Must rest at last; and all that earth have trod
Still need the grace of a forgiving God!
A very interesting sketch of the life of Butler, from the pen of John
Evans, is given in the "Papers of the Manchester Literary Club" vol. iii,
published 1877.
In many collections of epitaphs the following is stated to be inscribed on
a gravestone at Gillingham, but we are informed by the Vicar that no such
epitaph is to be found, nor is there any trace of it having been placed
there at any time:--
Sacred
To the Memory of
THOMAS JACKSON, Comedian,
Who was engaged 21st of December, 1741, to play a comic cast of
characters, in this great theatre--the world; for many of which
he was prompted by nature to excel.
The season being ended, his benefit over, the charges all paid, and
his account closed, he made his exit in the tragedy of Death, on the
17th of March, 1798, in full assurance of being called once more to
rehearsal; where he hopes to find his forfeits all cleared, his cast
of parts bettered, and his situation made agreeable, by Him who paid
the great stock-debt, for the love He bore to performers in general.
The following epitaph was written by Swift on Dicky Pearce, who died 1728,
aged 63 years. He was a famous fool, and his name carries us back to the
time when kings and noblemen employed jesters for the delectation of
themselves and their friends. It is from Beckley, and reads as follows:--
Here lies the Earl of Suffolk's Fool,
Men call him DICKY PEARCE;
His folly serv'd to make men laugh,
When wit and mirth were scarce.
Poor Dick, alas! is dead and gone,
What signifies to cry?
Dickys enough are still behind
To laugh at by and by.
In our "Historic Romance," published 1883, by Hamilton, Adams, and Co.,
London, will be found an account of "Fools and Jesters of the English
Sovereigns," and we therein state that the last recorded instance of a
fool being kept by an English family, is that of John Hilton's Fool,
retained at Hilton Castle, Durham, who died in 1746.
The following epitaph is inscribed on a tombstone in the churchyard of St.
Mary Friars, Shrewsbury, on Cadman, a famous "flyer" on the rope,
immortalised by Hogarth, and who broke his neck descending from a steeple
in Shrewsbury, in 1740:--
Let this small monument record the name
Of CADMAN, and to future times proclaim
How, by an attempt to fly from this high spire,
Across the _Sabrine_ stream, he did acquire
His fatal end. 'Twas not for want of skill,
Or courage to perform the task, he fell;
No, no,--a faulty cord being drawn too tight
Hurried his soul on high to take her flight,
Which bid the body here beneath, good-night.
Joe Miller, of facetious memory, next claims our attention. We find it
stated in Chambers's "Book of Days" (issued 1869), as follows: Miller was
interred in the burial-ground of the parish of St. Clement Danes, in
Portugal Street, where a tombstone was erected to his memory. About ten
years ago, that burial-ground, by the removal of the mortuary remains, and
the demolition of the monuments, was converted into a site for King's
College Hospital. Whilst this not unnecessary, yet undesirable,
desecration was in progress, the writer saw Joe's tombstone lying on the
ground; and being told that it would be broken up and used as materials
for the new building, he took an exact copy of the inscription, which was
as follows:
Here lye the Remains of
Honest JO : MILLER,
who was
a tender Husband,
a sincere Friend,
a facetious Companion,
and an excellent Comedian.
He departed this Life the 15th day of
August 1738, aged 54 years.
If humour, wit, and honesty could save
The humourous, witty, honest, from the grave,
The grave had not so soon this tenant found,
Whom honesty, and wit, and humour, crowned;
Could but esteem, and love preserve our breath,
And guard us longer from the stroke of Death,
The stroke of Death on him had later fell,
Whom all mankind esteemed and loved so well.
S. DUCK,
From respect to social worth,
mirthful qualities, and histrionic excellence,
commemorated by poetic talent in humble life.
The above inscription, which Time
had nearly obliterated, has been preserved
and transferred to this Stone, by order of
MR. JARVIS BUCK, Churchwarden,
A.D. 1816.
[Illustration: JOE MILLER'S TOMBSTONE, ST. CLEMENT DANES CHURCHYARD,
LONDON.]
An interesting sketch of the life of JOE MILLER will be found in the "Book
of Days," vol. II., page 216, and in the same informing and entertaining
work, the following notes are given respecting the writer of the foregoing
epitaph: "The 'S. DUCK,' whose name figures as author of the verses on
MILLER'S tombstone, and who is alluded to on the same tablet, by Mr.
Churchwarden Buck, as an instance of 'poetic talent in humble life,'
deserves a short notice. He was a thresher in the service of a farmer near
Kew, in Surrey. Imbued with an eager desire for learning, he, under most
adverse circumstances, managed to obtain a few books, and educate himself
to a limited degree. Becoming known as a rustic rhymer, he attracted the
attention of Caroline, queen of George II., who, with her accustomed
liberality, settled on him a pension of £30 per annum; she made him a
Yeoman of the Guard, and installed him as keeper of a kind of museum she
had in Richmond Park, called Merlin's Cave. Not content with these
promotions, the generous, but perhaps inconsiderate queen, caused Duck to
be admitted to holy orders, and preferred to the living of Byfleet, in
Surrey, where he became a popular preacher among the lower classes,
chiefly through the novelty of being the 'Thresher Parson.' This gave
Swift occasion to write the following quibbling epigram:--
"The thresher Duck could o'er the queen prevail;
The proverb says,--'No fence against a flail.'
From threshing corn, he turns to thresh his brains,
For which her Majesty allows him grains;
Though 'tis confest, that those who ever saw
His poems, think 'em all not worth a straw.
Thrice happy Duck! employed in threshing stubble!
Thy toil is lessened, and thy profits double.
"One would suppose the poor thresher to have been beneath Swift's notice,
but the provocation was great, and the chastisement, such as it was,
merited. For though few men had ever less pretensions to poetical genius
than Duck, yet the Court party actually set him up as a rival--nay, as
superior--to Pope. And the saddest part of the affair was that Duck, in
his utter simplicity and ignorance of what really constituted poetry, was
led to fancy himself the greatest poet of the age. Consequently,
considering that his genius was neglected, and that he was not rewarded
according to his poetical deserts by being made the clergyman of an
obscure village, he fell into a state of melancholy, which ended in
suicide; affording another to the numerous instances of the very great
difficulty of doing good. If the well-meaning queen had elevated Duck to
the position of farm-bailiff, he might have led a long and happy life,
amongst the scenes and the classes of society in which his youth had
passed, and thus been spared the pangs of disappointed vanity and
misdirected ambition."
Says a thoughtful writer, if truth, perspicuity, wit, gravity, and every
property pertaining to the ancient or modern epitaph, were ever united in
one of terse brevity, it was that made for Burbage, the tragedian, in the
days of Shakespeare:--
"Exit BURBAGE."
Jerrold, perhaps, with that brevity, which is the soul of wit, trumped the
above by his anticipatory epitaph on that excellent man and distinguished
historian, Charles Knight:--
"Good KNIGHT."