Our next is from Hessle, near Hull, where over the remains of George Prissick, plumber and glazier, is the following epitaph:—
Adieu, my friend, my thread of life is spun;
The diamond will not cut, the solder will not run;
My body’s turned to ashes, my grief and troubles past,
I’ve left no one to worldly care—and I shall rise at last.
On a dyer, from the church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth, we have as follows:—
Here lies a man who first did dye,
When he was twenty four,
And yet he lived to reach the age,
Of hoary hairs, fourscore.
But now he’s gone, and certain ’tis
He’ll not dye any more.
In Sleaford churchyard, on Henry Fox, a weaver, the following lines are inscribed:—
Of tender thread this mortal web is made,
The woof and warp and colours early fade;
When power divine awakes the sleeping dust,
He gives immortal garments to the just.
Our next, epitaph from Weston, is placed over the remains of a useful member of society in his time:—
Here lies entomb’d within this vault so dark,
A tailor, cloth-drawer, soldier, and parish clerk;
Death snatch’d him hence, and also from him took
His needle, thimble, sword, and prayer-book.
He could not work, nor fight,—what then?
He left the world, and faintly cried, “Amen!”
On an Oxford bellows-maker, the following lines were written:—
Here lyeth John Cruker, a maker of bellowes,
His craftes-master and King of good fellowes;
Yet when he came to the hour of his death,
He that made bellowes, could not make breath.