[23] Charles Lamb died December 27, 1834, and was buried in Edmonton Churchyard, in a spot selected by himself.—Ed.
[24] This way of indicating the name of my lamented friend has been found fault with, perhaps rightly so; but I may say in justification of the double sense of the word, that similar allusions are not uncommon in epitaphs. One of the best in our language in verse, I ever read, was upon a person who bore the name of Palmer†; and the course of the thought, throughout, turned upon the Life of the Departed, considered as a pilgrimage. Nor can I think that the objection in the present case will have much force with any one who remembers Charles Lamb’s beautiful sonnet addressed to his own name, and ending—
No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name!
W. W. 1837.
† 1840. Pilgrim; 1837.
Professor Henry Reed, in his edition of 1837, added the following note to Wordsworth’s. “In Hierologus, a Church Tour through England and Wales, I have met with an epitaph which is probably the one alluded to above … a Kentish epitaph on one Palmer:
Palmers all our fathers were;
I, a Palmer lived here,
And traveyled sore, till worn with age,
I ended this world’s pilgrimage,