In Epitaphs : Graveyard Humour and Euloky (Sinipkin) Mr. W.
H. Beable has compiled an anthology of some beauty, much quaintness, ' and quite a little plain speaking. Our times have progressed beyond the gay lack of conSideratiOn for posthumous good fame which could allow such an epitaPh
to be carved on a gravestone as '
" Here lies, returned to clay, Miss Arabella Young, • Who on the first of May Began to hold her tongue."
And it is almost incredible that the following epitaph should be genuine ; yet it is taken from Burlington Churchyard :77
" Here lies the body of Mary. Alin Lowder, • She burst while drinking a seidlitz powder, Called from this world to her heavenly rest, She should have waited till it effervesced."
It is not always the noblest poets who compose the best epitaphs ,Wordsworth began an inscription on a. monument
to the second datighter of Sir Egerton Bridges :— "These vales were' saddened by no common gloom ' When good Jemima perished in her bloom."
Perhaps among the oddest epitaphs are the pure jingles : we see with wonder the compulsion to rhyme that exists every- where :—
" Here lies the body of William Dix, . One thousand, seven hundred and sixty-six." _ Or again " Some have children-----some have none, Here lies the mother of twenty-one." -
And is the following one_oilthe early examples Of enterprising advertisement ?'
" Beneath this stone in hopes of Zion
Doth lie the landlord of the Lion ; 1 His son keeps on the business still, Resigned unto the heavenly will."
The whole book makes pleasant reading for a wandering fancy.
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