Many persons have a natural predilection for wandering amongst the tombs. Whether in a town or village, their first impulse on arriving at a strange place, is to visit its common burial place, to ruminate amongst the tombs. A vastness, a solemnity, and a hallowedness seem to prevade the spot; and the mind in quietude has an indulgence there, a moralizing never exceeded even within the precincts of a sacred edifice.
The Poet has said,
The grave can teach
In silence, louder than divines can preach.
A celebrated moralist thus expresses himself on Epitaphs:—
When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of parents themselves, I see the vanity of grieving for those whom they must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those that deposed them—when I see rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind; when I read the several dates of the tombs of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that Great Day, when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.
In Brighton old churchyard there is vast material for thought, as great a diversity “In Memoriam” existing as in any burial place in the kingdom; the space being extensive and the monumental inscriptions numerous. Time has obliterated many epitaphs, and destroyed numerous tombstones, few records of the departed being discernible of dates previous to the 18th century. Thirty years since there were several wooden erections to record the memory of the dead; the memorial example of a catachresis, which
Words abused implies;
As, over his head a wooden tombstone lies.
According to the minutes of a Vestry Meeting held March 16th, 1791, it was: “Ordered that the Clerk of the Vestry do make enquiry whether the minister of the parish has a right to demand a fee for breaking the ground on the burial of a parishioner.” This order was made in consequence of a dispute upon the point, between the inhabitants and the Vicar, the Rev. Thomas Hudson.
The oldest tablet in Brighton churchyard is that at the north of the church, placed—it being a flat stone,—to the memory of Alice, the wife of Richard Masters, who died May, 25th, 1696. It is contiguous to headstones that bear the most quaint epitaphs in the whole ground. Immediately near it is that of Mary Sanders, April, 1753, and bears this injunction to her surviving family:—
My loving children, all agree;
Pray live in Love and Unity.