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EPITAPHS.
(Vol. vii., p. 178.)
The following is a real epitaph. It was written by Dr. Greenwood on his wife, who died in childbed, and it is in all probability still to be seen, where it was originally set up, in Solyhull churchyard, Warwickshire. The most amusing point in it is, that the author seriously intended the lines to rhyme. There is wonderful merit in the couplet where he celebrates her courage and magnanimity in preferring him to a lord or judge:
"Which heroic action, join'd to all the rest,
Made her to be esteem'd the Phœnix of her sex!"
"Go, cruel Death, thou hast cut down
The fairest Greenwood in all this kingdom!
Her virtues and her good qualities were such
That surely she deserved a lord or judge: