This was written by Dr. Whittaker, the historian of Whalley, who seems, according to the last line of this tremendous effort, to have been considerably impressed by the innkeeper’s “competent wealth,” even to the extent of reckoning it among the virtues.

At Barnwell All Saints, near Oundle, Northants, we read this epitaph on an innkeeper:

Man’s life is like a winter’s day,
Some only breakfast, and away;
Others to dinner stay, and are full fed:
The oldest man but sups, and goes to bed.
Large is his debt who lingers out the day,
Who goes the soonest has the least to pay.
Death is the waiter, some few run on tick,
And some, alas! must pay the bill to Nick!
Tho’ I owed much, I hope long trust is given,
And truly mean to pay all debts in heaven.

Worldly creditors might well look askance at such a resolution as that expressed in the last line, for there is no parting there.

In the churchyard of the deserted old church of Stockbridge, Hampshire, the curious may still, with some difficulty, find the whimsical epitaph of John Bucket, landlord of the “King’s Head” in that little town, who died, aged 67, in 1802:

And is, alas! poor Bucket gone?
Farewell, convivial honest John.
Oft at the well, by fatal stroke,
Buckets, like pitchers, must be broke.
In this same motley, shifting scene,
How various have thy fortunes been.
Now lifting high, now sinking low,
To-day the brim would overflow.
Thy bounty then would all supply,
To fill, and drink, and leave thee dry,
To-morrow sunk as in a well,
Content, unseen, with Truth to dwell.
But high or low, or wet or dry,
No rotten stave could malice spy.
Then rise, immortal Bucket, rise,
And claim thy station in the skies;
’Twixt Amphora and Pisces shine,
Still guarding Stockbridge with thy sign.

Lawrence, the great proprietor of the “Lion” at Shrewsbury, lies in the churchyard of St. Julian, hard by his old inn, and on the south wall of the church may yet be read his epitaph: “Sacred to the memory of Mr. Robert Lawrence, for many years proprietor of the ‘Raven’ and ‘Lion’ inns in this town, to whose public spirit and unremitting exertions for upwards of thirty years, in opening the great road through Wales between the United Kingdoms, as also for establishing the first mail coach to this town, the public in general have been greatly indebted, and will long have to regret his loss. Died III September MDCCCVI, in the LVII year of his age.”

Not an innkeeper, but a brewer, was Thomas Tipper, whose alliterative name is boldly carved on his remarkable tombstone in the windy little churchyard of Newhaven. I make no sort of apology or excuse for including Tipper’s epitaph in this chapter, for if he did not, in fact, keep an inn, he at any rate kept many inns supplied with his “stingo,” and his brew was a favourite with the immortal Mrs. Gamp, an acknowledged connoisseur in curious liquors. A “pint of the celebrated staggering ale or Real Old Brighton Tipper,” was her little whack at supper-time.

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