On a poor woman who kept an earthenware shop at Chester, the following epitaph was composed:—

Beneath this stone lies Catherine Gray,
Changed to a lifeless lump of clay;
By earth and clay she got her pelf,
And now she’s turned to earth herself.
Ye weeping friends, let me advise,
Abate your tears and dry your eyes;
For what avails a flood of tears?
Who knows but in a course of years,
In some tall pitcher or brown pan,
She in her shop may be again.

Our next is from the churchyard of Aliscombe, Devonshire:—

Here lies the remains of James Pady, brickmaker, late of this parish, in hope that his clay will be re-moulded in a workmanlike manner, far superior to his former perishable materials.

Keep death and judgment always in your eye,
Or else the devil off with you will fly,
And in his kiln with brimstone ever fry:
If you neglect the narrow road to seek,
Christ will reject you, like a half-burnt brick!

In the old churchyard of Bullingham, on the gravestone of a builder, the following lines appear:—

This humble stone is o’er a builder’s bed,
Tho’ raised on high by fame, low lies his head.
His rule and compass are now locked up in store.
Others may build, but he will build no more.
His house of clay so frail, could hold no longer—
May he in heaven be tenant of a stronger!

In Colton churchyard, Staffordshire, is a mason’s tombstone decorated with carving of square and compass, in relief, and bearing the following characteristic inscription:—

Sacred to the memory of
James Heywood,
Who died May 4th, 1804, in the 55th
year of his age.
The corner-stone I often times have dress’d;
In Christ, the corner-stone, I now find rest.
Though by the Builder he rejected were,
He is my God, my Rock, I build on here.

In the churchyard of Longnor, the following quaint epitaph is placed over the remains of a carpenter:—