[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—For quaintness this is hard to beat. I copied it from a tombstone on the floor of Bromfield Church, Suffolk :—
" Here lies the body of Bridget Applewhait once Bridget Nelson.
After the fatigues of a married life, born by her with incredible patience, for four year and three quarters bating three weeks : and after the enjoyment of the glorious freedom of an early and unblemished widowhood for four years and upwards : she resolved to run the risk of a second marriage bed : but death forbad the banns : and having with an apoplectick dart [the same instrument with which he had formally dispatched her mother) touched the most vital part of her brain—she must have fallen directly to the ground [as one thunder-strook] if she had not been catcht and supported by her intended Husband : of which invisible bruise,
after a struggle of above sixty hours with that grand Enemy to life [but the certain and merciful friend to helpless old age] in terrible convulsions, plaintive groans, or stupefying sleep, without recovery of her speech or senses, she died, on the 12th day of September in the year of Our Lord 1737 and of her own age 44."
12 More's Garden, Chelsea, S.W. 8.
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