EULOGISTIC, APT, APPROPRIATE.
BEN JONSON’S ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.
Underneath this marble hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sydney’s sister,—Pembroke’s mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair, and wise, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee!
Marble piles let no man raise
To her name for after days;
Some kind woman born as she,
Reading this, like Niobe,
Shall turn marble, and become
Both her mourner and her tomb.
ON ANOTHER LADY FRIEND.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die,
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.
ANDREW JACKSON’S EPITAPH ON HIS WIFE.
Here lie the remains of Mrs. Rachel Jackson, wife of President Jackson, who died December 22d, 1828, aged 61. Her face was fair, her person pleasing, her temper amiable, and her heart kind. She delighted in relieving the wants of her fellow-creatures, and cultivated that divine pleasure by the most liberal and unpretending methods. To the poor she was a benefactress; to the rich she was an example; to the wretched a comforter; to the prosperous an ornament. Her pity went hand in hand with her benevolence; and she thanked her Creator for being permitted to do good. A being so gentle and yet so virtuous, slander might wound, but could not dishonor. Even death, when he tore her from the arms of her husband, could but transplant her to the bosom of her God.
BISHOP LOWTH’S EPITAPH ON HIS DAUGHTER.
Cara, vale, ingenio præstans, pietate, pudore,
Et plus quam natæ nomine cara, vale.
Cara Maria, vale: ab veniet felicius ævum,
Quando iterum tecum, sim modo dignus, ero.
Cara redi, lætâ tum dicam voce, paternos
Eja age in amplexus, cara Maria, redi!
[Dearer than daughter,—paralleled by few
In genius, goodness, modesty,—adieu!
Adieu! Maria,—till that day more blest,
When, if deserving, I with thee shall rest.
Come, then, thy sire will cry in joyful strain,
Oh, come to my paternal arms again.]
IN THE CHURCHYARD OF OLD ST. PANCRAS.
Miss Basnett, 1756, æt. 23.
Go, spotless honor and unsullied truth;
Go, smiling innocence, and blooming youth;
Go, female sweetness joined with manly sense;
Go, winning wit, that never gave offence;
Go, soft humanity, that blest the poor;
Go, saint-eyed patience, from affliction’s door
Go, modesty that never wore a frown;
Go, virtue, and receive thy heavenly crown.
Not from a stranger came this heartfelt verse:
The friend inscribed thy tomb, whose tear bedewed thy hearse.
MALHERBE’S EPITAPH ON A YOUNG LADY.
Elle était de ce monde, ou les plus belles choses
Ont le pire destin;
Et, rose, elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses,
L’espace d’un matin.
[She was of this world, where all things the rarest
Have still the shortest race;
A rose she lived (so lives of flowers the fairest)
A little morning’s space!]
IN ST. MARY’S CHURCH, NOTTINGHAM.
Luke xx. 36.
Sleep on in peace; await thy Maker’s will;
Then rise unchanged, and be an angel still!
In the church of Ightham, near Sevenoaks, Kent, is a mural monument with the bust of a lady, who was famous for her needle-work and was traditionally reported to have written the letter to Lord Monteagle which resulted in the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. The following is the inscription:—
D. D. D.
To the pretious name and honour of Dame Dorothy Selby, Relict of
Sir William Selby, Kt. the only daughter and heire of Charles Bonham, Esq.
She was a Dorcas,
Whose curious needle wound the abused stage
Of this leud world into the golden age;
Whose pen of steel and silken inck enrolled
The acts of Jonah in records of gold;
Whose arte disclosed that plot, which, had it taken,
Rome had triumphed, and Britain’s walls had shaken.
She was
In heart a Lydia, and in tongue a Hanna;
In zeale a Ruth, in wedlock a Susanna;
Prudently simple, providently wary,
To the world a Martha, and to heaven a Mary.
Who put on { in the year } Pilgrimage, 69.
immortality { of her } Redeemer, 1641.
AT WESTFIELD, N. J.
Mrs. Jennet Woodruff, 1750, æt. 43.
The dame, that rests within this tomb,
Had Rachel’s beauty, Leah’s fruitful womb,
Abigail’s wisdom, Lydia’s faithful heart,
Martha’s just care, and Mary’s better part.
AT QUINCY, MASS.
1708.
Braintree, thy prophet’s gone; this tomb inters
The Rev. Moses Fiske his sacred herse.
Adore heaven’s praiseful art, that formed the man,
Who souls, not to himself, but Christ oft won;
Sailed through the straits with Peter’s family
Renowned, and Gaius’ hospitality,
Paul’s patience, James’s prudence, John’s sweet love,
Is landed, entered, cleared, and crowned above.
IN CRANSTON, R.I.
Here lies the Body of
Joseph Williams, Esq.
Son of Roger Williams, Esq.
(The first white man that came to Providence.)
Born 1644. Died 1725.
In King Philip’s war, he courageously went through,
And the native Indians he bravely did subdue;
And now he’s gone down into the grave, and he will be no more
Until it please Almighty God his body to restore
Into some proper shape, as he thinks fit to be,
Perhaps like a grain of wheat, as Paul set forth, you see,
Corinthians 1 Book, 15 chap. 37 verse.
ON THE TOMB OF MRS. DUNBAR, TRENTON, N.J.
The meed of merit ne’er shall die,
Nor modest worth neglected lie,
The fame that pious virtue gives,
The Memphian monuments outlives.
Reader, wouldst thou secure such praise,
Go, learn Religion’s pleasant ways.
POPE’S EPITAPH ON HARCOURT.
To this sad shrine, whoe’er thou art! draw near;
Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear:
Who ne’er knew joy but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.
The idea in the last line appears to be derived from an epitaph on an excellent wife, in the Roman catacombs:—
Conjugi piissimæ
de qua nihil aliud dolitus est
nisi mortem.
ON A SPANISH GIRL WHO DIED BROKEN-HEARTED.
She who lies beneath this stone
Died of constancy alone:
Fear not to approach, oh, passer-by—
Of naught contagious did she die.
One of the simplest, truest, and most dignified epitaphs ever written may be found in the Spectator, No. 518:—
Hic jacet R. C. in expectatione diei supremi.
Qualis erat dies iste indicabit.
AT BARNSTABLE, MASS.
Rev. Joseph Green, 1770, æt. 70.
Think what the Christian minister should be,
You’ve then his character, for such was he.
A similar epitaph may be found in Torrington churchyard, Devon:—
She was—but words are wanting to say what.
Think what a woman should be—she was that.
Which provoked the following reply:—
A woman should be both a wife and mother,
But Jenny Jones was neither one nor t’other.
AT GRIMSTEAD, ESSEX.
A wife so true, there are but few,
And difficult to find;
A wife more just, and true to trust,
There is not left behind.
AT BATON ROUGE, LA.
Here lies the body of David Jones. His last words were, “I die a Christian and a Democrat.”
AT ELIZABETH CITY, N. J.
Elias Boudinot, 1770, æt. 63.
This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,
May truly say, Here lies an honest man.[[27]]
ON SIR THOMAS VERE.
When Vere sought death, armed with his sword and shield,
Death was afraid to meet him in the field;
But when his weapons he had laid aside,
Death, like a coward, struck him, and he died.
BEN JONSON’S EPITAPH ON MICHAEL DRAYTON.
(One of the Elizabethan Poets, ob. 1631.)
Do, pious Marble, let thy readers know
What they and what their children owe
To Drayton’s name, whose sacred dust
We recommend unto thy TRUST:
Protect his memory and preserve his story,
Remain a lasting monument of his glory;
And when thy ruins shall disclaim
To be the treasurer of his name,
His name, that cannot fade, shall be
An everlasting monument to thee!
The epigrammatic turn in the concluding stanza was evidently plagiarized from Ion’s inscription upon the tomb of Euripides, which is thus faithfully translated:—
Divine Euripides, this tomb we see
So fair, is not a monument for thee,
So much as thou for it; since all will own
Thy name and lasting praise adorn the stone.
IN TICHFIELD CHURCH, HANTS.
The Husband, speakinge trewly of his wife,
Read his losse in hir death, hir praise in life:
Heare Lucie Quinsie Bromfield buried lies,
With neighbors sad deepe, weepinge, hartes, sighes, eyes.
Children eleaven, tenne livinge, me she brought.
More kind, trewe, chaste was noane, in deed, word, thought.
Howse, children, state, by hir was ruld, bred, thrives.
One of the best of maides, of women, wives,
Now gone to God, her heart sent long before;
In fasting, prayer, faith, hope, and alms’ deedes stoare.
If anie faulte, she lovéd me too much.
Ah, pardon that, for ther are too fewe such!
Then, reader, if thou not hard-hearted be,
Praise God for hir, but sigh and praie for me.
Heare, by hir dead, I dead desire to lie,
Till, raised to life, wee meet no more to die.
1618.