A few epitaphs relating to music and the drama now claim our attention. Our first example is to be found in the cathedral at Norwich:—

Here William Inglott, organist, doth rest,
Whose art in musick this Cathedral blest;
For descant most, for voluntary all,
He past on organ, song, and virginall.
He left this life at age of sixty-seven,
And now ’mongst angels all sings St. in Heaven;
His fame flies far, his name shall never die,
See, art and age here crown his memorie.
Non digitis, Inglotte, tuis terrestria tangis,
Tangis nunc digitis organa celsa poli.
Anno Dom. 1621.
Buried the last day This erected the 15th
of December, 1621. day of June, 1622.

In Wakefield Parish Church a tablet bears an inscription as follows:—

In memory of
Henry Clemetshaw,
upwards of fifty years organist
of this church, who died
May 7, 1821, aged 68 years.
Now, like an organ, robb’d of pipes and breath,
Its keys and stops are useless made by death,
Tho’ mute and motionless in ruins laid;
Yet when re-built, by more than mortal aid,
This instrument, new voiced, and tuned, shall raise,
To God, its builder, hymns of endless praise.

We copy the following from a monument in Holy Trinity Church, Hull:—

In memory of
George Lambert,
late Organist of this Church,
which office he held upwards of 40 years,
performing its duties with ability
and assiduity rarely exceeded,
affording delight to the lovers
of Sacred Harmony,
This Tablet is erected
by his Musical and private Friends,
aided by the brothers of the Humber
and Minerva Lodges of Free Masons of this Town
(being a member of the latter Lodge),
That they might place on record
the high sense they entertained
of his personal and professional merit.
He died Feb. 19th, 1838, aged 70 years,
And his Remains were interred at the
Parish Church of St. John in Beverley.
Tho’ like an Organ now in ruins laid,
Its stops disorder’d, and its frame decay’d,
This instrument ere long new tun’d shall raise
To God, its Builder, notes of endless praise.

From a churchyard in Wales we obtain the following curious epitaph on an organ blower:—

Under this stone lies Meredith Morgan,
Who blew the bellows of our church organ.
Tobacco he hated, to smoke most unwilling,
Yet never so pleased as when pipes he was filling.
No reflection on him for rude speech could be cast,
Though he gave our old organ many a blast!
No puffer was he, though a capital blower;
He could blow double G., and now lies a note lower.

Our next epitaph records the death of a fiddler, who appears to have been so much attached to his wife that upon the day of her death he, too, yielded to the grim tyrant. Of this pair, buried in Flixton churchyard, it may be truly said: “In life united, and in death not parted.” The inscription is as follows:—

To the Memory of John Booth, of Flixton, who died 16th March, 1778, aged 43 years; on the same day and within a few hours of the death of his wife Hannah, who was buried with him in the same grave, leaving seven children behind them.