L. H. J. T.
Baskerville the Printer (Vol. iv., pp. 40. 123. 211.).
—For several years past I have had by me a little memorandum in the handwriting of a friend. It states that Baskerville was once foreman to a stonemason, during which time he had cut some lines upon the tombstone of a poor idiot, who was buried in Edgbaston churchyard. The lines are these:
"If th' Innocent are favourites of Heaven,
And little is required where little's given,
My great Creator has for me in store
Eternal Bliss; what wise man would have more?"
A few days since (Jan. 26), being at Birmingham, I visited Edgbaston churchyard, and on making inquiry for the above-mentioned tombstone, was grieved to learn (from one who resembled the sexton) that nothing had been heard of it since the year 1816. It seems that, with many other tombstones, it had been maliciously broken and destroyed in the said year, and that though a reward had been offered for the detection of the criminals, they had never been discovered. Is all this true? or have I given the epitaph correctly? If not, it is more my misfortune than my fault, for I am as accurate on the matter as I have the power of being at present.
RT.
Warmington.