Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

tioned epitaph, has far higher fame, though of another sort. It is generally regarded as the land of bulls, which can only be accounted for by the passionate fondness, on the part of so large a portion of her population, for a certain fair lady in Italy, whose correspondence with her numerous lovers is carried on by means of what are called bulls. But we have great doubts whether any tomb in Ireland contains such palpable evidence of these taurine propensities as an epitaph to be seen in Tavistock churchyard, a small borough in Devonshire, which is noted, as the Times contends, for its "mild and misty air:"

"Under this stone lies three children dear,

Two be buried at Tawton, and the other here."

We have already noticed a brief but expressive epitaph from Oxford, and we must not omit the sister University of Cambridge. St. Andrew's Church, belonging to the latter,

contains one of the most cutting, although at the same time one of the most angelic, specimens of lithography we have ever met with. It reads as follows:

"An Angel beckoned, and her Spirit flew ;

But, oh! her last look it cut our souls in two."

”秦

The power of the eye is proverbial, and optical science has suggested, with consummate skill, that the retina of a murdered person should always be examined, as if viewed in due time, it would perform the duty of an efficient detective; but we never knew it had pretensions to the art of psychotomy, as the above epitaph so clearly implies.

The well-known epitaph on Sir John Vanbrugh, the builder of Blenheim and other weighty erections—

"Lie heavy on him, Earth! for he

Laid many a heavy load on thee ".

* Compare "the look" which the old Zuluander gave ishop Colenso, as described at Chapter IV., p. 181.

is rather a poor attempt at a joke for so grave a subject. Moreover, it is the exact converse of the following; for if Sir John's weight was so manifest above ground, the hero to whom the next inscription belongs must have been no less so below ground. The churchyard of Stamford tells the following heavy tale :

"In remembrance of that prodigy of nature,

DANIEL LAMBERT,

a native of Leicester, who was possessed of an excellent and convivial mind, and in personal greatness had no competitor. He measured 3 Feet 1 inch round the leg; 9 Feet 4 inches round the body, and weighed 52 Stone 11 lb. He departed this life on the 21st of June, 1809, aged 39 years. As a testimony of respect, this stone is erected by his friends at Leicester."

His enormous bulk, so faithfully described in the above epitaph, suggested the witty lines whereby the modern "Pindar" tuned his lyre in honour of the illustrious deceased :

"Daniel! thou fattest of all men,

If thou hadst been in the lions' den,
Had they inclined to dine and sup,

They never could have eat thee up!"

It behoves us now to draw our remarks on the "End of Man" to a close; and in so doing we may appropriately quote an epitaph inscribed on a tomb in the good town of Ipswich; for not only does it convey a better moral to all persons on earth, whether rich or poor, young or old, high or low, Jew or Gentile, Christian or Pagan-to men of all classes and all climes, whether viewed as Pyrrhonists, Necromancers, Allegorists, Orators, or cultivators of flowing Beards-than most of the foregoing specimens of grave-yard poetry which we have given at length; but it contains such excellent advice that we cannot do better, in concluding our humble work in general, and this chapter in particular, than ask our readers to "read, mark, learn, and

inwardly digest" it, for their benefit in time

and eternity:-
:-

"I Warner once was to myself,
Now Warning am to thee,
Both living, dying, dead I was;
See, then, thou Warned be."

The End.

DALZIEL BROTHERS, CAMDEN PRESS, LONDON.

« НазадПродовжити »