No. IX.
When I first undertook, there was scarcely any variety, either in the inscriptions, or devices, upon gravestones: death’s heads and crossbones; scythes and hour glasses; angels, with rather a diabolical expression; all-seeing eyes, with an ominous squint; squares and compasses; such were the common devices; and every third or fourth tablet was inscribed:
Thou traveller that passest by,
As thou art now, so once was I;
As I am now, thou soon shalt be,
Prepare for death and follow me.
No wonder people were wearied to death, or within an inch of it, by reading this lugubrious quatrain, for the hundredth time. We had not then learned, from that vivacious people, who have neither taste nor talent for being sad, to convert our graveyards into pleasure grounds.
To be sure, even in my early days, and long before, an audacious spirit, now and then, would burst the bonds of this mortuary sameness, and take a bolder flight. We have an example of this, on the tablet of the Rev. Joseph Moody, in the graveyard at York, Maine.
Although this stone may moulder into dust,
Yet Joseph Moody’s name continue must.
And another in Dorchester:
Here lies our Captain and Mayor of Suffolk,
Was withall,
A godly magistrate was he, and major general.
Two troops of hors with him here came, such
Worth his love did crave.
Ten companyes also mourning marcht
To his grave.
Let all that read be sure to keep the faith as
He has don;
With Christ he lives now crowned, his name
Was Humphrey Atherton,
He dyed the 16 of September, 1661.
The following, also, in the graveyard at Attleborough, upon the tablet of the Rev. Peter Thacher, who died in 1785, is no common effort, and in the style of Tate and Brady: