Marianne S--.
Conjuge (i?) nunquam satis plorandæ
Inane hoc, tamen ultimum,
Amoris consecrat testimonium,
Maritus, heu! superstes.
The above Epitaph, inscribed on a plain marble tablet in a village church near Bath, is one of the few in which the Latin language has been employed with the brief and profound pathos of ancient sepulchral inscriptions.
Short was her life,
Longer will be her rest;
Christ call’d her home,
Because he thought it best.For she was born to die,
To lay her body down,
And young she did fly,
Into the world unknown.5 years & 9 months.
Here lies my wife in earthly mould,
Who when she lived did naught but scold.
Peace! wake her not for now she’s still,
She had, but now I have my will.
Epitaph written by Sarah Dobson, wife of John Dobson, to be put on her tombstone after her decease:—
I now have fallen asleep—my troubles gone,
For while on earth, I had full many a one,
When I get up again—as Parson says,
I hope that I shall see some better days.
If Husband he should make a second suit
His second wife will find that he’s a brute.
He often made my poor sad heart to sigh,
And often made me weep from one poor eye,
The other he knocked out by a violent blow,
As all my Kinsfolk and my Neighbours know.
I hope he will not serve his next rib so,
But if he should, will put the two together,
And through them stare while Satan tans his leather.
On Jemmy Jewell.
’Tis odd, quite odd, that I should laugh,
When I’m to write an epitaph.
Here lies the bones of a rakish Timmy
Who was a Jewell & a Jemmy.He dealt in diamonds, garnets, rings,
And twice ten thousand pretty things;
Now he supplies Old Nick with fuel,
And there’s an end of Jemmy Jewell.
On Thomas Knowles & his Wife.