The Xenia sentinel. [volume] (Xenia [Ohio]) 1863-186?, 1865-02-10
Wit on Tombstones.

A vast amount of wit is to be gathered
from tombstones, and mortuary puns have
long been famous. The epitaph Of the
witty divine, DR.. Thomas Fuller, is Wor-
thy of himself, simply
FuIler's earth.
There is professional point in the
epitaph of the eminent barrister, Sir John
Strange:
Here lies an honest Lawyer is STRANGE.
And by what an outrageous quibble has
the name of VIM. Burton, Esq, been
handed down to immortality. The epitaph
is to be seen in a churchyard near Sails
bury:
o sun, moon, stars, and ye celestial poles
Are graves then, dwindled into Burton holes?
There is something quaint and touching
in this epitaph of Grimaldi, the distinguish
ed clown:
Here am.
One of the best of this briefer kind was
proposed by Jerrold, whose wit did not
always wear so courteous dress. Charles
Knight, the Shakesperian critic, was the
subject and the words
Good knight.
Professional rivalry produced this i'll
natured inscription for the tombstone ola
Western editor:
Here LIES editor.
It is added that the injured man recon-
mended the author to use the inscription
as motto for his own journal.
Of histronic epitaphs, the best is this
on one Of Shakspeare's actors
Exit Burbage.
In similar vein a wit gave conplet
to Mrs. Oldfeld, the most celebrated ac-
tress of her day:
This we must own, in justice to her shade.
The first bad exit OldfeId ever made.
Something of compliment is here sacri-
feed to make the point. 1t is the reverse
of MalcOlm's EulOgy on Cowdor:
Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving oft.
The comedian Foote takes his turn thus:
FoOte from his earthly stage. alas is hurled.
Death took him of, who took of all the world.
Westminster Abbey has some notable
epitaphs. This, by Samuel Wesley, is on
the monument to Butler, the author of
Hudibras:
When Butler, needy wretch was still alive,
No generous patron would dinner give,
See him, when starved to death and turned to
! dust,
Presented with monumental bust
The poets fate is here in emblem shOWni
He asked for bread and received a stone.
This couplet, on a monument to John
Gay, the poet, Thackeray's "Little French
Abbe," is hardly suited to Christian
church:
Life is jest, and all things show it,
thought so once, and now 1 know it.
And what defiance there is in this, on
the monument of "that gallant soldier, Sir
Thomas Vere.'
When We're sought death, armed with his sword
and shield,
Death was afraid to meet him, in the field;
But when his weapons he had laid aside
Death, like coward, struck him, and be died.
Sir Thomas Perkins, the great wrestler,
caused monument to be built for him.
self, on which was a sculpture in relief,
depicting death in the act of throwing Sir
Thomas. The epitaph, which is in Latin,
reads as follows:
Hero lies the chief, whS once throw all,
Thrown by the cOnqusring arm of death,
Who ne'er had given the knight fall,
But that he found him out Of breath,
But boast not, Death with empty pride
Thy strength the day will come when he
Arising, with fresh breath supplied,
Shall Tanquish time, and conquer thee.
Miss Long was a beautiful actress of
the last century, so short in stature that
she was known as the pocket Venus. Her
epitaph concludes:
Though long, yet short.
Though short yet PRETTY Long.
Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury,
was a eOvetous man, and this pasquinnd-
ing epitaph was put on him:
Here lies his Grace, a.oOld clay clad,
Who died for want of what he had.
The reverse Of this is one on Mr..
James Worsdale a very liberal man:
Eager to get, but not to keen the pelfi
Afri0ud 70 all mankind except himself
We close our list with a pathetic in
scription placed by an honest Illinois far
mer over the double grave Of a span OF
favorite horses, struck down by lightning,
and buried in his front yard