Presumably the idea the writer here intended to convey was that this landlord of the “Crown” was “laid down” after the manner of wine in bins, to mature.
At St. John’s, Leeds, are said to be the following lines, dated 1793, that have a lilt somewhat anticipatory of the Bab Ballads metres, on one who was originally a clothier:
Hic jacet, sure the fattest man
That Yorkshire stingo made,
He was a lover of his can,
A clothier by his trade.
His waist did measure three yards round,
He weighed almost three hundred pound.
His flesh did weigh full twenty stone:
His flesh, I say,—he had no bone,
At least, ’tis said he had none.
The next, at Northallerton, seems to be by way of warning to innkeepers at all disposed to drinking their stock:
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.
Why did he, according to the epitaph, merely “die”? Surely, from the point of view of an incorrigibly eccentric epitaph-writer, a man not only named Gun, but spelling his name with one “n,” and dying so suddenly, should have “gone off.” We are sadly compelled to acknowledge this particular wag to be an incompetent.
If Mr. Walter Gun had been more careful and abstemious, he might have emulated the subject of our next example, and completed a half-century of inn-keeping, as did John Wigglesworth, of Whalley, who, as under, seems to have been a burning and a shining light and exemplar:
Here lies the Body of
JOHN WIGGLESWORTH,
More than fifty years he was the perpetual innkeeper in this Town. Notwithstanding the temptations of that dangerous calling, he maintained good order in his House, kept the Sabbath Day Holy, frequented the Public Worship with his family, induced his guests to do the same, and regularly partook of the Holy Communion. He was also bountiful to the Poor, in private, as well as in public, and by the blessings of Providence on a life so spent, died possessed of competent Wealth,
Feb. 28, 1813,
Aged 77 years.