UNIQUE AND LUDICROUS EPITAPHS.
ON A CONNECTICUT MAN WITH A REMARKABLE TUMOR.
Our father lies beneath the sod,
His spirit’s gone unto his God;
We never more shall hear his tread,
Nor see the wen upon his head.
ON THE BELOVED PARTNER OF ROBERT KEMP.
She once was mine
But now, oh, Lord,
I her to Thee resign,
and remain your obedient, humble servant, Robert Kemp.
ON A MISER.
Here lies old Father Gripe, who never cried Jam satis;
’Twould wake him did he know you read his tombstone gratis.
REQUIESCAT IN PACE.
Here lies the body of Obadiah Wilkinson,
and Ruth, his wife:
Their warfare is accomplished.
ON MISS GWIN.
Here lies the body of Nancy Gwin,
Who was so very pure within,
She burst her outward shell of sin,
And hatched herself a cherubim.
Whether this, from a village churchyard, is an improvement on Young, is a question:—
Death loves a shining mark,
and
In this case he had it.
EPITAPH FOR A GREAT TALKER.
Hic tacet—instead of hic jacet.
IN OTSEGO COUNTY, N. Y.
John burns.
(On this a commentator remarks, “Most men suffer enough above ground without being bunglingly abused, post mortem, in ill-written inscriptions which were at least intended to be civil. We suppose the words were simply intended to record the man’s name; but they look marvellously like a noun substantive coupled with a verb in the indicative mood, and affording a sad indication that John burns. There is no hint that John deserved the fate to which he appears to have been consigned since his decease, and we can only say as we read the startling declaration, we should be very sorry to believe it.”)
In the church of Stoke Holy Cross, near Norwich, Eng., is the following epitaph:—
In the womb of this tomb twins in expectation lay,
To be born in the morn of the Resurrection day.
IN A CHURCHYARD IN CORNWALL.
Here lies the body of Gabriel John,
Who died in the year one thousand and one;
Pray for the soul of Gabriel John,
You may, if you please, or let it alone,
For it’s all one
To Gabriel John,
Who died in the year one thousand and one.
IN MORETON CHURCHYARD.
Here lies the bones of Roger Norton,
Whose sudden death was oddly brought on:
Trying one day his corns to mow off,
The razor slipt and cut his toe off!
The toe—or, rather, what it grew to—
An inflammation quickly flew to;
The part then took to mortifying,
Which was the cause of Roger’s dying.
ON A WOOD-CUTTER, OCKHAM, SURREY, 1736.
The Lord saw good, I was lopping off wood,
And down fell from the tree;
I met with a check, and I broke my neck,
And so death lopped off me.
A stone-cutter received the following epitaph from a German, to be cut upon the tombstone of his wife:—
Mine vife Susan is dead, if she had life till nex friday she’d bin dead shust two veeks. As a tree falls so must it stan, all tings is impossible mit God.
IN CHILDWALL PARISH, ENGLAND.
Here lies me, and my three daughters,
Brought here by using Cheltenham waters.
If we had stuck to Epsom salts
We wouldn’t be in these here vaults.
AT OXFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
To all my friends I bid adieu,
A more sudden death you never knew,
As I was leading the old mare to drink,
She kicked, and killed me quicker’n a wink.
A SOUTH CAROLINA TRIBUTE TO DEPARTED WORTH.
Here lies the boddy of Robert Gordin,
Mouth almighty and teeth ackordin,
Stranger tread lightly over this wonder,
If he opens his mouth, you are gone by thunder.
ON AN EAST TENNESSEE LADY.
She lived a life of virtue, and died of the cholera morbus, caused by eating green fruit, in hope of a blessed immortality, at the early age of 21 years, 7 months and 16 days! Reader, ‘Go thou and do likewise.’
FROM SOLYHULL CHURCHYARD, WARWICKSHIRE.
The following epitaph was written by a certain Rev. Dr. Greenwood on his wife, who died in childbirth. One hardly knows which to admire most,—the merit of the couplet wherein he celebrates her courage and magnanimity in preferring him to a lord or judge, or the sound advice with which he closes.
Go, cruel Death, thou hast cut down
The fairest Greenwood in all this kingdom!
Her virtues and good qualities were such
That surely she deserved a lord or judge;
But her piety and humility
Made her prefer me, a Doctor in Divinity;
Which heroic action, joined to all the rest,
Made her to be esteemed the Phœnix of her sex;
And like that bird, a young she did create
To comfort those her loss had made disconsolate.
My grief for her was so sore
That I can only utter two lines more:
For this and all other good women’s sake,
Never let blisters be applied to a lying-in woman’s back.
Robert Baxter of Farhouse, who died in 1796, was believed to have been poisoned by a neighbor with whom he had a violent quarrel. Baxter was well known to be a man of voracious appetite; and it seems that one morning, on going out to the fell, he found a piece of bread and butter wrapped in white paper. This he incautiously devoured, and died a few hours after in great agony. The following is inscribed on his tombstone, Knaresdale, Northumberland:—
All you that please these lines to read,
It will cause a tender heart to bleed.
I murdered was upon the fell,
And by the man I knew full well;
By bread and butter which he’d laid,
I, being harmless, was betrayed.
I hope he will rewarded be
That laid the poison there for me.
IN DONCASTER CHURCHYARD, 1816.
Here lies 2 Brothers by misfortin serounded,
One dy’d of his wounds & the other was drownded.
AT SARAGOSSA, SPAIN.
Here lies John Quebecca, precentor to My Lord the King. When he is admitted to the choir of angels, whose society he will embellish, and where he will distinguish himself by his powers of song, God shall say to the angels, “Cease, ye calves! and let me hear John Quebecca, the precentor of My Lord the King!”
ROCHESTER’S EPITAPH ON CHARLES II.
Here lies our sovereign lord the king,
Whose word no man relied on;
Who never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one.
FROM A GRAVESTONE IN ESSEX, ENGLAND.
Here lies the man Richard,
And Mary his wife,
Whose surname was Pritchard:
They lived without strife;
And the reason was plain,—
They abounded in riches,
They had no care nor pain,
And his wife wore the breeches.
In All Saints’ Churchyard, Leicester, may be found the following on two children of John Bracebridge, who were both named John and both died in infancy:—
Both John and John soon lost their lives,
And yet, by God, John still survives.
Bishop Thurlow, at one of his visitations, had the words by God altered to through God.
FROM THETFORD CHURCHYARD.
My grandfather was buried here,
My cousin Jane, and two uncles dear;
My father perished with inflammation in the thighs,
And my sister dropped down dead in the Minories:
But the reason why I’m here interred, according to my thinking,
Is owing to my good living and hard drinking.
If, therefore, good Christians, you wish to live long,
Don’t drink too much wine, brandy, gin, or any thing strong.
IN A CHURCHYARD IN ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND.
Here lies I, Martin Elmrod;
Have mercy on my soul, gude God,
As I would have on thine gin I were God,
And thou wert Martin Elmrod.
IN SWANSEA CHURCHYARD.
The body underneath this stone is
Of my late husband, Jacob Jonas,
Who, when alive, was an Adonis.
Ah! well-a-day!
O death! thou spoiler of fair faces,
Why tookst thou him from my embraces?
How couldst thou mar so many graces?
Say, tyrant, say.
AT NORTHALLERTON.
Hic jacet Walter Gun,
Sometime landlord of the Sun;
Sic transit gloria mundi!
He drank hard upon Friday,
That being a high day,
Then took to his bed, and died upon Sunday.
ALL SAINTS, NEWCASTLE.
Here lies poor Wallace,
The prince of good fellows,
Clerk of Allhallows,
And maker of bellows.
He bellows did make till the day of his death;
But he that made bellows could never make breath.
IN CALSTOCK CHURCHYARD, CORNWALL.
’Twas by a fall I caught my death;
No man can tell his time or breath;
I might have died as soon as then,
If I had had physician men.
ON GENERAL WOLFE.
On the death of General Wolfe, a premium was offered for the best epitaph on that officer. One of the candidates for the prize sent a poem, of which the following stanza is a specimen:—
He marched without dread or fears,
At the head of his bold grenadiers;
And what was more remarkable—nay, very particular—
He climbed up rocks that were perpendicular.
REBECCA ROGERS, FOLKESTONE, 1688.
A house she hath, ’tis made of such good fashion,
The tenant ne’er shall pay for reparation;
Nor will her landlord ever raise her rent,
Or turn her out of doors for non-payment:
From chimney-tax this cell’s forever free,—
To such a house, who would not tenant be?
IN DORCHESTER, MASS.
1661.
Heare lyes our captaine, and major of Suffolk was withall,
A godly magistrate was he, and major generall.
Two troops of hors with him here came, such worth his love did crave,
Ten companyes of foot also mourning marcht to his grave.
Let all that read be sure to keep the faith as he hath don;
With Christ he lives now crownd. His name was Humphry Atherton.
IN KNIGHTSBRIDGE CHURCHYARD.
On a man who was too poor to be buried with relations in the church:—
Here I lie at the chancel door,
And I lie here because I am poor;
For the further in, the more you pay,—
But here I lie as warm as they.
IN BIDEFORD CHURCHYARD, KENT.
The wedding-day appointed was,
And wedding-clothes provided,
But ere the day did come, alas!
He sickened, and he die did.
IN WHITTLEBURY CHURCHYARD, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
John Heath, 1767, æt. 27.
While Time doth run, from sin depart;
Let none e’er shun Death’s piercing dart;
For read and look, and you will see
A wondrous change was wrought on me.
For while I lived in joy and mirth,
Grim Death came in and stopped my breath;
For I was single in the morning light,
By noon was married, and was dead at night.
IN LONGNOR CHURCHYARD, STAFFORD.
William Billings, a soldier in the British army 75 years,
Died 1793, aged 114 years.
Billeted by death, I quartered here remain,
And when the trumpet sounds, I’ll rise and march again.
IN ROCHESTER CHURCHYARD, ENG.
Though young she was,
Her youth could not withstand,
Nor her protect
From Death’s impartial hand.
Life is a cobweb, be we e’er so gay,
And death a broom that sweeps us all away.
HUMPHREY COLE.
Here lies the body of good Humphrey Cole;
Though black his name, yet spotless is his soul;
But yet not black, though Carbo is the name,
Thy chalk is scarcely whiter than his fame.
A priest of priests, inferior was to none,
Took heaven by storm when here his race was run.
Thus ends the record of this pious man:
Go and do likewise, reader, if you can.
IN EAST HARTFORD, CONN.
Now she is dead and cannot stir;
Her cheeks are like the faded rose;
Which of us next shall follow her,
The Lord Almighty only knows.
Hark, she bids all her friends adieu;
An angel calls her to the spheres;
Our eyes the radiant saint pursue
Through liquid telescopes of tears.
ON A TOMBSTONE IN NEW JERSEY.
Reader, pass on!—don’t waste your time
On bad biography and bitter rhyme;
For what I am, this crumbling clay insures,
And what I was, is no affair of yours!
IN A NEW ENGLAND GRAVEYARD.
Here lies John Auricular,
Who in the ways of the Lord walked perpendicular.
Many a cold wind o’er my body shall roll,
While in Abraham’s bosom I’m a feasting my soul.
AT AUGUSTA, MAINE.
—After Life’s Scarlet Fever,
I sleep well.
The following illustrated epitaph is copied from a tombstone near Williamsport, Pa.
Sacred to the memory of
Henry Harris,
Born June 27th, 1821, of Henry Harris
and Jane his wife.
Died on the 4th of May, 1837, by the kick of a colt
in his bowels.
Peaceable and quiet, a friend to
his father and mother, and respected
by all who knew him, and went
to the world where horses
don’t kick, where sorrows and weeping
is no more.
In Dorchester, Mass. may be seen the following queer epitaph on a young woman:—
On the 21st of March
God’s angels made a sarche.
Around the door they stood;
They took a maid,
It is said,
And cut her down like wood.
A Dutchman’s epitaph on his twin babes:—
Here lies two babes, dead as two nits,
Who shook to death mit aguey fits.
They was too good to live mit me,
So God he took ’em to live mit he.