Quaint Epitaphs

by Various

IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

At St. Mary le Bone.

Queen Elizabeth.

(By Laureate Skelton.)

Fame blow aloud, and to the world proclaim,
There never ruled such a royal dame!
The word of God was ever her delight,
In it she meditated day and night.
Spain's rod, Rome's ruin, Netherland's relief,
Earth's joy, England's gem, world's wonder,
Nature's chief.
She was and is, what can there more be said,
On earth the chief, in Heaven the second made.

In Harrow Churchyard.

(Ascribed to Lord Byron.)

Beneath these green trees rising to the skies,
The planter of them, Isaac Greentree lies!
A time shall come when these green trees shall fall,
And Isaac Greentree rise above them all.

Surrey, England.

The Lord was good I was lopping off wood

And down fell from a tree.

I met with a check that broke my neck

And so God lopped off me.

Here lies John Higley whose father and mother were drowned in their passage from America. Had they both lived they would have been buried here.

Aberdeen, Scotland.

Here lies Martin Elmrod.
Have mercy on my soul, good God
As I would do were I Lord God
And you were Martin Elmrod.

Here lies Thomas Smith
And what is somewhat rareish,
He was born bred and hanged
In this e'er parish.

Here I lie at the chancel door
And I lie here because I am poor;
For the farther in the more you pay,
But here I lie as warm as they.

Pickering Churchyard.

Death comes to all, none can resist his dart
At his command the dearest friends must part.
A mournful widow who this truth doth own
In gratitude erects this humble stone.

Childwell, England.

Here lies the body of

John Smith.

Buried in the cloisters
If he don't jump at the last trump,
Call, Oysters!

England.

If Heaven be pleased when sinners cease to sin,
If Hell be pleased when sinners enter in,
If earth be pleased when ridded of a knave,
Then all are pleased for Coleman's in his grave.

Samuel Gardner was blind in one eye and in a moment of confusion he stepped out of a receiving and discharging door in one of the warehouses into the ineffable glories of the celestial sphere.

To the memory of Ric Richards who by a gangrene first lost a toe, then a leg and lastly his life.

Ah cruel Death to make three meals of one,
To taste and eat, and eat till all was gone.
But know thou tyrant when the trump shall call,
He'll find his feet, and stand where thou shalt fall.

Poet & Shoemaker.
Joseph Blackett.

Stranger behold interred together
The lords of learning and of leather.
Poor Joe is gone but left his awl
You'll find his relics in a stall.
His works were neat and often found
Well stitched and with morocco bound.
Tread lightly where the bard is laid;
He cannot mend the shoe he made.
Yet he is happy in his hole
With verse immortal as his soul;
But still to business he held fast
And stuck to Pheabus to the last.
Then who shall say so good a fellow
Was only leather and prunello?
For character he did not lack it
And if he did't were shame to Blackett.

Poor Betty Conway, she drank lemonade at a masquerade,
So now she's dead and gone away.

Robert Master, Undertaker.

Here lies Bob Master. Faith! t'was very hard
To take away an honest Robin's breath.
Yes, surely Robin was full well prepared
For he was always looking out for death.

Taken from "The Lady's Magazine and Musical Repository," Jan., 1801.

Epitaph on a Bird.

Here lieth, aged three months the body of Richard Acanthus a young person of unblemished character. He was taken in his callow infancy from the wing of a tender parent by the rough and pitiless hand of a two-legged animal without feathers.

Though born with the most aspiring disposition and unbending love of freedom he was closely confined in a grated prison and scarcely permitted to view those fields of which he had an undoubted charter.

Deeply sensible of this infringement of his natural rights he was often heard to petition for redress in the most plaintive notes of harmonious sorrow. At length his imprisoned soul burst the prison which his body could not and left a lifeless heap of beauteous feathers.

If suffering innocence can hope for retribution, deny not to the gentle shade of this unfortunate captive the humble though uncertain hope of animating some happier form; or trying his new fledged pinions in some happy elysium, beyond the reach of

Man

the tyrant of this lower world.

On three children.

"Who plucked my choicest flowers?" the gardener cried
"The Master did," a well known voice replied.
"'Tis well they are all his" the gardener said,
And meekly bowed his reverential head.

Beneath this stone in sound repose
Lies William Rich of Lydeard Close.
Eight wives he had yet none survive
And likewise children eight times five,
From whom an issue vast did pour
Of great grandchildren five times four.
Rich born, rich bred, yet Fate adverse
His wealth and fortune did reverse.
He lived and died immensely poor
July the tenth aged ninety-four.

Ellington.

Here rest the remains of Alexander McKinstry.

A kind husband, tender parent, dutiful son, affectionate brother, faithful friend, generous master, and obliging neighbor. The house looks desolate and mourns, every door groans doleful as it turns. The pillars languish and each silent wall in grief laments the masters fall.

Joseph Horton, Pedlar.

I lodged have in many a town
And travelled many a year.
Till age and death have brought me down
To my last lodging here.

Falkirk, Eng.

Here lies the body of Robert Gordon,
Mouth almighty and teeth according.
Stranger tread lightly on this wonder,
If he opens his mouth you are gone to thunder.

Here under this sod and under these trees
Is buried the body of Solomon Pease.
But here in this hole lies only his pod
His soul is shelled out and gone up to God.

Sacred to the memory of Anthony Drake,
Who died for peace and quietness sake.
His wife was constantly scolding and scoffing,
So he sought repose in a twelve dollar coffin.

At rest beneath this slab of stone,
Lies stingy Jimmy Wyett.
He died one morning just at ten
And saved a dinner by it.

Here lies the body of Sarah Sexton
She was a wife that never vexed one.
But I can't say as much for the one at the next stone.

I Dionysius underneath this tomb
Some sixty years of age have reached my doom.
Ne'er having married, think it sad,
And I wish my father never had.

Underneath this marble hearse
Lies the subject of all verse;
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death ere thou hast slain another
Wise and fair and good as she
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

Kent.

Here lies two brothers by misfortune surrounded;
One died of his wounds but the other was drownded.

Epitaph of Susan Blake.
Written by Sir Thomas Moore at her urgent entreaty.

Good Susan Blake in royal state
Arrived at last at Heaven's gate.

(After an absence of years and having fallen out with her he added these two lines.)

"But Peter met her with a club
And knocked her back to Beelzebub."

Beneath this stone in hopes of Zion,
Doeth lay the landlord of the Lion.
His son keeps in the business still
Resigned unto His heavenly will.

John Palfryman who is buried here
Was aged four and twenty years.
And near this place his Mother lies
Likewise his father when he dies.

Salisbury.

Farewell vain world I've had enough of thee,
And value not what thou canst say of me;
Thy smiles I court not, nor thy frowns I fear,
All's one to me, my head lies quiet here;
What faults thou'st seen in me take care to shun
And look at home, there's something to be done

Like a tender rose-tree was my spouse to me.
Her offspring plucked too long deprived of life is she.
Three went before, her life went with the sixth:
I stay with the three our sorrows for to mix,
Till Christ our only hope our joys doth fix.

Shetford Churchyard.

My grandfather was buried here,
My cousin Jane and two uncles, dear.
My father perished with inflammation of the eyes.
My sister dropped dead in a nunnery.
But the reason why I am 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 to much wine, brandy, gin, or any thing strong.

Beneath this monumental stone
Lies half a ton of flesh and bone.

Shakspeare.

Good friends for Jesus' sake forbear
To stir the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man who spares these stones
And cursed be he who moves my bones.

Nova Scotia.

Here lies old twenty five per cent.
The more he had the more he lent.
The more he had the more he craved,
Great God, can his poor soul be saved?

Mt. Park Cemetery, Montreal.

Fred McKernan, Aged three years.

Johnie wants to know where do you now stay
Or with whom do you now play,
Or where do you roam?
For the little iron cot
Your poor mother bought
Still waits for you at home.

Folkstone.

Mrs David Stuart

For twenty years and eight I lived a maiden's life
And five and thirty years I was a married wife.
And in that space of time eight children I did bear,
Four sons, four daughters who I ever loved most dear;
Three of that number as the Scriptures run,
Preached up the way to Heaven—and Hell to shun.

Maiden Lillard,

A young Scotch woman, who at the battle of Ancrum, 1545, distinguished herself by her extraordinary valor.

Fair Maiden Lillard lies under this sod.
Little was her statue but great was her fame.
Upon the English loons she laid many thumps,
And when her legs were cut off she fought upon her stumps.

Here lies a man who all his mortal life
Spent mending clocks, but could not mend his wife.
The larum of his bell was ne'er so shrill
As was her tongue, aye, clacking like a mill.
But now he's gone—oh whither none can tell
But hope beyond the sound of Matty's bell.

Paris.

Adah Isaac Menkin.

"Thou knowest."

Lord Byron's epitaph on his Newfoundland dog at Newstead.

"To mark a friend's remains
These stones arise.
I never knew but one
And here he lies."

Manchester, England.

Here lies John Hill, a man of skill,
His age was five times ten.
He ne'er did good nor ever would
Had he lived as long again.

Beneath these stones repose the bones of Theodosious Grimm.

He took his beer from year to year

And then the bier took him.

(On a butcher whose name was Lamb.)

Beneath this stone lies Lamb asleep,
Who died a Lamb who lived a sheep.
Many a lamb and sheep he slaughtered
But cruel Death the scene has altered.

Rose Clifford.

This tomb doth here enclose the world's most beauteous Rose.

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.

St. Botolph's.

A traveller lies here at rest
Who life's rough ocean tossed on.
His many virtues all expressed
Thus simply—"I'm from Boston."

St. Clair, Canada.

On a brickmaker.

Keep death and judgment always in your eye
Or else the devil off with you will fly
And in his kiln with burning brimstone ever fry.
If you neglect the narrow road to seek
Christ will respect you like a half burned brick.

Patrick Bay, Innholder.

Killed by an ignorant Physician.
Not Fate or Death but doctor Rowe
Advanced to give the deadly blow
That smote me to the shades below.
Had Death alone approached too nigh,
Had Fate or Nature bid me die,
I must have borne it patiently.

But to be robbed of life and ease
By such infernal quacks as these
And pay, beside their modest fees!
Now folks that travel by this way,
Pointing toward my tomb shall say,
"There lies the bones of Patrick Bay—
Who ne'er a cheerful glass denied,
All force of arms, and grog defied,
Yet by a vile Jack Pudding died."

John Scott
Brewer.

Poor John Scott is buried here

Tho' once he was both hale and stout.

Death stretched him on his bitter bier,

In another world he hops about.

Received of Philip Harding
his borrowed earth July 4th 1673.

The Duke of Norfolk, a great whist player.

(By Sheridan.)

Here lies England's premier baron,
Patiently awaiting the last trump.

Here lies a Cardinal who wrought

Both good and evil in his time.

The good he did was good for naught

Not so the evil—that was prime.

Elihu Yale, the founder of Yale College at New Haven, lies buried in Wrenham, Wales. His monument bears this inscription:

Born in America, in Europe bred
In Africa traveled in Asia wed,
Where long he lived and thrived
And at London died.
Much good, some ill he did so hope all's even
And his soul through mercy is gone to Heaven.
You that survive and read this tale take care,
For this most certain event to prepare;
Where blest in peace the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the silent dust.