inscriptions. A running footman was buried in the churchyard of Henbury,
near Bristol. The poor fellow, a negro, as the tradition says, died of
consumption incurred as a consequence of running from London!
"Here
Lieth the Body of
SCIPIO AFRICANUS
Negro Servant to ye Right
Honourable Charles William
Earl of Suffolk and Brandon
who died ye 21 December
1720, aged 18 years."
On the footstone are these lines:--
"I, who was born a Pagan and a Slave,
Now sweetly sleep, a Christian in my grave.
What though my hue was dark, my Saviour's sight
Shall change this darkness into radiant light.
Such grace to me my Lord on earth has given
To recommend me to my Lord in Heaven,
Whose glorious second coming here I wait
With saints and angels him to celebrate."
Our next is from Hillingdon, near Uxbridge:--
Here lyeth
TOBY PLESANT
An African Born.
He was early in life rescued from West Indian Slavery by a Gentleman
of this Parish which he ever gratefully remembered and whom he
continued to serve as a Footman honestly and faithfully to the end of
his Life. He died the 2d of May 1784 Aged about 45 years.
Many visitors to Morecambe pay a pilgrimage to Sambo's grave. A
correspondent kindly furnishes us with the following particulars of poor
Sambo, who is buried far from his native land. Sunderland Point, he says,
a village on the coast near Lancaster, was, before the advent of
Liverpool, the port for Lancaster, and is credited with having received
the first cargo of West India cotton which reached this country. Some
rather large warehouses were built there about a century ago, now adapted
to fishermen's cottages for the few fisher folk who still linger about the
little port. Near the ferry landing on the Morecambe side there is a
strange looking tree, which tradition says was raised from a seed brought
from the West Indies, and the natives call it the cotton tree, because
every year it strews the ground with its white blossoms. Close to the
shore, with only a low stone wall dividing it from the restless sea, is a
solitary grave in the corner of a field, which is called "Sambo's grave."
Poor Sambo came over to this country with a cotton cargo, fell ill at
Sunderland Point, and died; and there being no churchyard near, he was
laid in mother earth in an adjoining field. The house is still pointed out
in which the negro died, and some sixty years afterwards it occurred to
Mr. James Watson that the fact of this dark-skinned brother dying so far
from home among strangers was sufficiently pathetic to warrant a memorial.
Accordingly he caused the following to be inscribed on a large stone laid
flat on the grave, which indicates that he was a slave of probably an
English master about a century before the days of negro emancipation in
the colonies:--
Here lies
POOR SAMBO,
A faithful negro, who
(Attending his master from the West Indies),
Died on his arrival at Sunderland.
For sixty years the angry winter's wave
Has, thundering, dashed this bleak and barren shore,
Since Sambo's head laid in this lonely grave,
Lies still, and ne'er will hear their turmoil more.
Full many a sand-bird chirps upon the sod,
And many a moonlight elfin round him trips,
Full many a summer sunbeam warms the clod,
And many a teeming cloud upon him drips.
But still he sleeps, till the awakening sounds
Of the archangel's trump new life impart;
Then the Great Judge, His approbation founds
Not on man's colour, but his worth of heart.
H. Bell, del. (1796.)
Epitaphs on Soldiers and Sailors.
We give a few of the many curious epitaphs placed to the memory of
soldiers and sea-faring men. Our initial epitaph is taken from Longnor
churchyard, Staffordshire, and it tells the story of an extended and
eventful life:--
In memory of WILLIAM BILLINGE, who was Born in a Corn Field at
Fawfield head, in this Parish, in the year 1679. At the age of 23
years he enlisted into His Majesty's service under Sir George Rooke,
and was at the taking of the Fortress of Gibralter in 1704. He
afterwards served under the Duke of Marlborough at Ramillies, fought
on the 23rd of May, 1706, where he was wounded by a musket-shot in his
thigh. Afterwards returned to his native country, and with manly
courage defended his sovereign's rights in the Rebellion in 1715 and
1745. He died within the space of 150 yards of where he was born, and
was interred here the 30th January, 1791, aged 112 years.
Billeted by death, I quartered here remain,
And when the trumpet sounds I'll rise and march again.
On a Chelsea Hospital veteran we have the following interesting epitaph:--
Here lies WILLIAM HISELAND,
A Veteran, if ever Soldier was,
Who merited well a Pension,
If long service be a merit,
Having served upwards of the days of Man.
Ancient, but not superannuated;
Engaged in a Series of Wars,
Civil as well as Foreign,
Yet maimed or worn out by neither.
His complexion was Fresh and Florid;
His Health Hale and Hearty;
His memory Exact and Ready.
In Stature
He exceeded the Military Size;
In Strength
He surpassed the Prime of Youth;
And
What rendered his age still more Patriarchal,
When above a Hundred Years old
He took unto him a Wife!
Read! fellow Soldiers, and reflect
That there is a Spiritual Warfare,
As well as a Warfare _Temporal_.
Born the 1st August, 1620,
Died the 17th of February, 1732,
Aged One Hundred and Twelve.
At Bremhill, Wiltshire, the following lines are placed to the memory of a
soldier who reached the advanced age of 92 years:--
A poor old soldier shall not lie unknown,
Without a verse and this recording stone.
'Twas his, in youth, o'er distant lands to stray,
Danger and death companions of his way.
Here, in his native village, stealing age
Closed the lone evening of his pilgrimage.
Speak of the past--of names of high renown,
Or brave commanders long to dust gone down,
His look with instant animation glow'd,
Tho' ninety winters on his head had snow'd.
His country, while he lived, a boon supplied,
And Faith her shield held o'er him when he died.
The following inscription is engraved on a piece of copper affixed to one
of the pillars in Winchester Cathedral:--
A MEMORIALL.
For the renowned Martialist RICHARD BOLES of y{e}
Right Worshypful family of the Boles, in
Linckhorne Sheire: Colonell of a Ridgment of Foot
of 1300, who for his Gratious King Charles y{e} First
did wounders at the Battell of Edge Hill; his last
Action, to omit all others was att Alton in the
County of Southampton, was surprised by five or
Six Thousand of the Rebells, who caught him there
Quartered to fly to the church, with near fourscore
of his men who there fought them six or seven
Houers, and then the Rebells breaking in upon them
he slew with his sword six or seven of them, and
then was slayne himself, with sixty of his men aboute
him
1641.
His Gratious Sovereign hearing of his death, gave
him his high comendation in y{s} pationate expression,
Bring me a moorning scarffe, i have lost
One of the best Commanders in this Kingdome.
Alton will tell you of his famous fight
Which y{s} man made and bade the world good night
His verteous life feared not Mortality
His body must his vertues cannot Die.
Because his Bloud was there so nobly spent,
This is his Tomb, that church his monument.
Ricardus Boles in Art. Mag.
Composuit, Posuitque, Dolens,
An. Dm. 1689.
On one of the buttresses on the south side of St. Mary's Church, at
Beverley, is an oval tablet, to commemorate the fate of two Danish
soldiers, who, during their voyage to Hull, to join the service of the
Prince of Orange, in 1689, quarrelled, and having been marched with the
troops to Beverley, during their short stay there sought a private meeting
to settle their differences by the sword. Their melancholy end is recorded
in a doggerel epitaph, of which we give an illustration.
In the parish registers the following entries occur:--
1689, December 16.--Daniel Straker, a Danish trooper buried.
" December 23.--Johannes Frederick Bellow, a Danish
trooper, beheaded for killing the other,
buried.
"The mode of execution was," writes the Rev. Jno. Pickford, M.A., "it may
be presumed, by a broad two-handed sword, such a one as Sir Walter Scott
has particularly described in 'Anne of Geierstein,' as used at the
decapitation of Sir Archibald de Hagenbach, and which the executioner is
described as wielding with such address and skill. The Danish culprit was,
like the oppressive knight, probably bound and seated in a chair; but such
swords as those depicted on the tablet could not well have been used for
the purpose, for they are long, narrow in the blade, and perfectly
straight."
[Illustration: TABLET IN ST. MARY'S CHURCH, BEVERLEY.]
We have in the diary of Abraham de la Pryme, the Yorkshire antiquary, some
very interesting particulars respecting the Danes. Writing in 1689, the
diarist tells us: "Towards the latter end of the aforegoing year, there
landed at Hull about six or seven thousand Danes, all stout fine men, the
best equip'd and disciplin'd of any that was ever seen. They were mighty
godly and religious. You would seldom or never hear an oath or ugly word
come out of their mouths. They had a great many ministers amongst them,
whome they call'd pastours, and every Sunday almost, ith' afternoon, they
prayed and preach'd as soon as our prayers was done. They sung almost all
their divine service, and every ministre had those that made up a quire
whom the rest follow'd. Then there was a sermon of about half-an-houre's
length, all _memoratim_, and then the congregation broke up. When they
administered the sacrament, the ministre goes into the church and caused
notice to be given thereof, then all come before, and he examined them one
by one whether they were worthy to receive or no. If they were he admitted
them, if they were not he writ their names down in a book, and bid them
prepare against the next Sunday. Instead of bread in the sacrament, I
observed that they used wafers about the bigness and thickness of a
sixpence. They held it no sin to play at cards upon Sundays, and commonly
did everywhere where they were suffered; for indeed in many places the
people would not abide the same, but took the cards from them. Tho' they
loved strong drink, yet all the while I was amongst them, which was all
this winter, I never saw above five or six of them drunk."
The diarist tells us that the strangers liked this country. It appears
they worked for the farmers, and sold tumblers, cups, spoons, etc., which
they had imported, to the English. They acted in the courthouse a play in
their own language, and realised a good sum of money by their
performances. The design of the piece was "Herod's Tyranny--The Birth of
Christ--The Coming of the Wise Men."
A correspondent states that in Battersea Church there is a handsome
monument to Sir Edward Wynter, a captain in the East India Company's
service in the reign of Charles II., which records that in India, where he
had passed many years of his life, he was
A rare example, and unknown to most,
Where wealth is gain'd, and conscience is not lost;
Nor less in martial honour was his name,
Witness his actions of immortal fame.
Alone, unharm'd, a tiger he opprest,
And crush'd to death the monster of a beast.
Thrice twenty mounted Moors he overthrew,
Singly, on foot, some wounded, some he slew,
Dispersed the rest,--what more could Samson do?
True to his friends, a terror to his foes,
Here now in peace his honour'd bones repose.
Below, in bas-relief, he is represented struggling with the tiger, both
the combatants appearing in the attitude of wrestlers. He is also depicted
in the performance of the yet more wonderful achievement, the discomfiture
of the "thrice twenty mounted Moors," who are all flying before him.
In Yarmouth churchyard, a monumental inscription tells a painful story as
follows:--
To the memory of GEORGE GRIFFITHS, of the Shropshire Militia, who died
Feb. 26th, 1807, in consequence of a blow received in a quarrel with
his comrade.
Time flies away as nature on its wing,
I in a battle died (not for my King).
Words with my brother soldier did take place,
Which shameful is, and always brings disgrace.
Think not the worse of him who doth remain,
For he as well as I might have been slain.
We have also from Yarmouth the next example:--
To the memory of ISAAC SMITH, who died March 24th, 1808, and SAMUEL
BODGER, who died April 2nd, 1808, both of the Cambridgeshire Militia.
The tyrant Death did early us arrest,
And all the magazines of life possest:
No more the blood its circling course did run,
But in the veins like icicles it hung;
No more the hearts, now void of quickening heat,
The tuneful march of vital motion beat;
Stiffness did into every sinew climb,
And a short death crept cold through every limb.
The next example is from Bury St. Edmunds:--
WILLIAM MIDDLEDITCH,
Late Serjeant-Major of the Grenadier Guards,
Died Nov. 13, 1834, aged 53 years.
A husband, father, comrade, friend sincere,
A British soldier brave lies buried here.
In Spain and Flushing, and at Waterloo,
He fought to guard our country from the foe;
His comrades, Britons, who survive him, say
He acted nobly on that glorious day.
Edward Parr died in 1811, at the age of 38 years, and was buried in North
Scarle churchyard. His epitaph states:--
A soldier once I was, as you may see,
My King and Country claim no more from me.
In battle I receiv'd a dreadful ball
Severe the blow, and yet I did not fall.
When God commands, we all must die it's true
Farewell, dear Wife, Relations all, adieu.
A tablet in Chester Cathedral reads as follows:--
To the Memory of
JOHN MOORE NAPIER
Captain in Her Majesty's 62nd Regiment
Who died of Asiatic Cholera
in Scinde
on the 7th of July, 1846
Aged 29 years.
The tomb is no record of high lineage;
His may be traced by his name;
His race was one of soldiers.
Among soldiers he lived; among them he died;
A soldier falling, where numbers fell with him,
In a barbarous land.
Yet there was none died more generous,
More daring, more gifted, or more religious.
On his early grave
Fell the tears of stern and hardy men,
As his had fallen on the graves of others.
A British soldier lies buried under the shadow of the fine old Minster of
Beverley. He died in 1855, and his epitaph states:--
A soldier lieth beneath the sod,
Who many a field of battle trod:
When glory call'd, his breast he bar'd,
And toil and want, and danger shar'd.
Like him through all thy duties go;
Waste not thy strength in useless woe,
Heave thou no sigh and shed no tear,
A British soldier slumbers here.
[Illustration: A GRAVESTONE IN BRIGHTON CHURCHYARD.]
The stirring lives of many female soldiers have furnished facts for
several important historical works, and rich materials for the writers of
romance. We give an illustration of the stone erected by public
subscription in Brighton churchyard over the remains of a notable female
warrior, named Phoebe Hessel. The inscription tells the story of her long
and eventful career. The closing years of her life were cheered by the
liberality of George IV. During a visit to Brighton, when he was Prince
Regent, he met old Phoebe, and was greatly interested in her history. He
ascertained that she was supported by a few benevolent townsmen, and the
kind-hearted Prince questioned her respecting the amount that would be
required to enable her to pass the remainder of her days in comfort.
"Half-a-guinea a week," said Phoebe Hessel, "will make me as happy as a
princess." That amount by order of her royal benefactor was paid to her
until the day of her death. She told capital stories, had an excellent
memory, and was in every respect most agreeable company. Her faculties
remained unimpaired to within a few hours of her death. On September 22nd,
1821, she was visited by a person of some literary taste, and the
following particulars were obtained respecting her life. The writer
states:--"I have seen to-day an extraordinary character in the person of
Phoebe Hessel, a poor woman stated to be 108 years of age. It appears
that she was born in March, 1715, and at fifteen formed a strong
attachment to Samuel Golding, a private in the regiment called Kirk's
Lambs, which was ordered to the West Indies. She determined to follow her
lover, enlisted into the 5th regiment of foot, commanded by General
Pearce, and embarked after him. She served there five years without
discovering herself to anyone. At length they were ordered to Gibraltar.
She was likewise at Montserrat, and would have been in action, but her
regiment did not reach the place till the battle was decided. Her lover
was wounded at Gibraltar and sent to Plymouth; she then waited on the
General's lady at Gibraltar, disclosed her sex, told her story, and was
immediately sent home. On her arrival, Phoebe went to Samuel Golding in
the hospital, nursed him there, and when he came out, married and lived
with him for twenty years; he had a pension from Chelsea. After Golding's
death, she married Hessel, has had many children, and has been many years
a widow. Her eldest son was a sailor with Admiral Norris; he afterwards
went to the East Indies, and, if he is now alive, must be nearly seventy
years of age. The rest of the family are dead. At an advanced age she
earned a scanty livelihood at Brighton by selling apples and gingerbread
on the Marine Parade.
"I saw this woman to-day in her bed, to which she is confined from having
lost the use of her limbs. She has even now, old and withered as she is, a
characteristic countenance, and, I should judge from her present
appearance, must have had a fine, though perhaps a masculine style of head
when young. I have seen many a woman at the age of sixty or seventy look
older than she does under the load of 108 years of human life. Her cheeks
are round and seem firm, though ploughed with many a small wrinkle. Her
eyes, though their sight is gone, are large and well formed. As soon as it
was announced that somebody had come to see her, she broke the silence of
her solitary thoughts and spoke. She began in a complaining tone, as if
the remains of a strong and restless spirit were impatient of the prison
of a decaying and weak body. 'Other people die, and I cannot,' she said.
Upon exciting her recollection of former days, her energy seemed roused,
and she spoke with emphasis. Her voice was strong for an old person; and I
could easily believe her when, upon being asked if her sex was not in
danger of being detected by her voice, she replied that she always had a
strong and manly voice. She appeared to take a pride in having kept her
secret, declaring that she told it to no man, woman, or child, during the
time she was in the army; 'for you know, Sir, a drunken man and a child
always tell the truth. But,' said she, 'I told my secret to the ground. I
dug a hole that would hold a gallon, and whispered it there.' While I was
with her, the flies annoyed her extremely; she drove them away with a fan,
and said they seemed to smell her out as one that was going to the grave.
She showed me a wound she had received in her elbow by a bayonet. She
lamented the error of her former ways, but excused it by saying, 'When you
are at Rome, you must do as Rome does.' When she could not distinctly hear
what was said, she raised herself in the bed and thrust her head forward
with impatient energy. She said when the king saw her, he called her 'a
jolly old fellow.' Though blind, she could discern a glimmering light, and
I was told would frequently state the time of day by the effect of light."
The next is copied from a time-worn stone in Weem churchyard, near
Aberfeldy, Perthshire:--
In memory of Captain JAMES CARMICHAEL, of Bockland's Regiment.--Died
25th Nov. 1758:
Where now, O Son of Mars, is Honour's aim?
What once thou wast or wished, no more's thy claim.
Thy tomb, Carmichael, tells thy Honour's Roll,
And man is born, as thee, to be forgot.
But virtue lives to glaze thy honours o'er,
And Heaven will smile when brittle stone's no more.
The following is inscribed on a gravestone in Fort William Cemetery:--
Sacred
To the Memory of
Captain Patrick Campbell,
Late of the 42nd Regiment,
Who died on the xiii of December,
MDCCCXVI.,
Aged eighty-three years,
A True Highlander,
A Sincere Friend,
And the best deerstalker
Of his day.
A gravestone in Barwick-in-Elmet, Yorkshire, states:--
Here lies, retired from busy scenes,
A first lieutenant of Marines,
Who lately lived in gay content
On board the brave ship "Diligent."
Now stripp'd of all his warlike show,
And laid in box of elm below,
Confined in earth in narrow borders,
He rises not till further orders.
The next is from Dartmouth churchyard:--
THOMAS GOLDSMITH, who died 1714.
He commanded the "Snap Dragon," as Privateer belonging to this port,
in the reign of Queen Anne, in which vessel he turned pirate, and
amass'd much riches.
Men that are virtuous serve the Lord;
And the Devil's by his friends ador'd;
And as they merit get a place
Amidst the bless'd or hellish race;
Pray then, ye learned clergy show
Where can this brute, Tom Goldsmith, go?
Whose life was one continued evil,
Striving to cheat God, Man, and Devil.
We find the following at Woodbridge on Joseph Spalding, master mariner,
who departed this life Sept. 2nd, 1796, aged 55:--
Embark'd in life's tempestuous sea, we steer
'Midst threatening billows, rocks and shoals;
But Christ by faith, dispels each wavering fear,
And safe secures the anchor of our souls.
In Selby churchyard, the following is on John Edmonds, master mariner, who
died 5th Aug., 1767:--
Tho' Boreas, with his blustering blasts
Has tost me to and fro,
Yet by the handiwork of God,
I'm here enclosed below.
And in this silent bay I lie
With many of our fleet,
Until the day that I set sail
My Saviour Christ to meet.
Another, on the south side of Selby churchyard:--
The boisterous main I've travers'd o'er,
New seas and lands explored,
But now at last, I'm anchor'd fast,
In peace and silence moor'd.
In the churchyard, Selby, near the north porch, in memory of William
Whittaker, mariner, who died 22nd Oct., 1797, we read--
Oft time in danger have I been
Upon the raging main,
But here in harbour safe at rest
Free from all human pain.
Southill Church, Bedfordshire, contains a plain monument to the memory of
Admiral Byng, who was shot at Portsmouth:--
To the perpetual disgrace of public justice,
The Honourable JOHN BYNG, Vice-Admiral of the Blue,
fell a martyr to political persecution, March 14,
in the year 1757;
when bravery and loyalty were insufficient securities for
the life and honour of a naval officer.
The following epitaph, inscribed on a stone in Putney churchyard, is
nearly obliterated:--
Lieut. ALEX. DAVIDSON
Royal Navy has Caus'd this Stone
to be Erected to the Memory of
HARRIOT his dearly beloved Wife
who departed this Life Jan 24 1808
Aged 38 Years.
I have crossed this Earth's Equator Just sixteen times
And in my Country's cause have brav'd far distant climes
In Howe's Trafalgar and several Victories more
Firm and unmov'd I heard the Fatal Cannons roar
Trampling in human blood I felt not any fear
Nor for my Slaughter'd gallant Messmates shed A tear
But of A dear Wife by Death unhappily beguil'd
Even the British Sailor must become A child
Yet when from this Earth God shall my soul unfetter
I hope we'll meet in Another World and a better.
Some time ago a correspondent of the _Spectator_ stated: "As you are not
one to despise 'unconsidered trifles' when they have merit, perhaps you
will find room for the following epitaph, on a Deal boatman, which I
copied the other day from a tombstone in a churchyard in that town:--
In memory of GEORGE PHILLPOT,
Who died March 22nd, 1850, aged 74 years.
Full many a life he saved
With his undaunted crew;
_He put his trust in Providence_,
AND CARED NOT HOW IT BLEW.
A hero; his heroic life and deeds, and the philosophy of religion, perfect
both in theory and practice, which inspired them, all described in four
lines of graphic and spirited verse! Would not 'rare Ben' himself have
acknowledged this a good specimen of 'what verse can say in a little?'
Whoever wrote it was a poet 'with the name.'
"There is another in the same churchyard which, though weak after the
above, and indeed not uncommon, I fancy, in seaside towns, is at least
sufficiently quaint:--
Memory of JAMES EPPS BUTTRESS, who, in rendering assistance to the
French Schooner, "Vesuvienne," was drowned, December 27th, 1852, aged
39.