EPITAPH ON A CONTROVERSIALIST.
On the death of that turbulent and refractory enthusiast, John Lilburne, alias Free-born John, alias Lilburne the Trouble-world, there appeared the following epigrammatic epitaph:—
Is John departed, and is Lilburne gone?
Farewell to both, to Lilburne and to John!
Yet being gone, take this advice from me,
Let them not both in one grave buried be.
Here lay ye John; lay Lilburne thereabout,
For if they both should meet, they would fall out.
This alluded to a saying, that John Lilburne was so quarrelsome, that if he were the only man in the world, John would quarrel with Lilburne, and Lilburne with John. Lilburne, it will be remembered, was a sad thorn in Cromwell's sore side, for which the protector amply repaid him.