The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1869-10-12

cannot refrain from laughing. This is
sometimes the result Of sentence being
misplaced, or brought in at the wrong
point, OF some mistake in grammar, SPELL
ing or punctuation, &c The following
are of this class.
This is from the churchyerd at Pcwsey,
In Dorsetshire, England
g" Here lies the body
Of
Lady O'Pooney.
Great neice Of Burke.
Commonly called the Sublime.
She was
Bland, passionate, and deeply religious:
Also she painted
In water-coors,
And sent several pictures
To the exhibition
she was n first cousin
To Lady Jones;
And of such
Is the kingdom ofheaven'
The following is from an old Scottish
tombstone:
" Here lies the body of Alexander Maoph erson
Who was very extraordinary person
lie was six feet high in his stocking feet
And kept his acooutrements clean and neat
lie was slew
At the battle of Waterloo
uo was shot by bullet,
Plump through the gullet;
1t went in at his throat,
And came out ut the back of his coat"
Being 4" slowed in this way is worse
death than that of Pennsylvania legis-
tor who came to his end, in the language
of cotemporary, by being " threw from
a horse"
Upon tombstone in England is this
inscription:
Full seven feet deep and fast asleep
lie by my direction;
Let no one stir bone of mine
Until the resurrection"
This old one is on an impious man,
named Menalcas:
{" Here lyeth Menalcas as dead as a logge
That lived like dwell, and died like a dogg-
Here doth he lye said ? then say lye,
For from this place he parted by and by
But here he made his decent into hell.
Without either booko, candell or bell.
On contentious and quarrelsome
man.
Here lyos the man who in life
With every other man had lave and strife
But now he is dead and layd in grave,
His bones no quiet rest can have
For lay your unto this stone,
And you shall hear how every bone
Doth knock and boat against each other.
Pray for his souo's health, gentle brother.
There is another class of epitaphs which
are neither serious, ludicrous, nor like
the ones | have just given, but which
are simply curious. They are not par
ticularly laughable, but strike the reader
as being quaint. The following belong
to that class. On woman who sold
earthenware:
Beneath this stone lies Katherine GRAY.
Changed from busy life to lfeless clay.
BY earth and clay she got her pelf,
And now she's turned to earth herself
Ye weeping friends, let me ndvise
Abate your grief and dry your eyes.
For what avails food Of tears'
Who knows, but in a rnn of years.
In some tall pitcher or broad pan.
She in her shop may be again ?"
"Tom Dowley died when God decrsed
Tho they blistered him and twice did bleed
So do what you may, at the voice Of God,
You must join poor Dowley under the sod
"To Abrahm's bosom my wife has gone.
And only her dust is under this stone
Don't heavily tread let tho grass grow on.
For it's all part of her flesh and bone"
On person who was killed by being
thrown from his horse:
My friend, judge not me-
Thou seest judge not thee
Betwixt the stirrup and the ground
Mercy asked, mercy found
The following is from Farnam, near
Naworth castle:
John Bell broken-brow.
Lies under this stean
Foure of mine some,
Laid On my wean,
! was man of my meate
Master Of my wife
lived on myn land
Without micle strife"
Among eptaphs which hand down war
nings and admonitions to posterity We
have the following:
Upon w. Lambc of London. who was
charitable man:
" As | was so be yee,
As | am, yee shall be;
That | gave, that have,
That spent that had
Thus | end all my cost,
That left, that lost"
Upon one whose name was suppress
ed:
Locke man before thee how thy death hasteth.
Locke man behind thee, how thy life wasteth
Locke on thy right side how death the desireth,
Locke on thy left side how slime the beguileth
Locke man above thee, joys that ever shall last.
Locke man beneath thee the pains without rest.
A correspondent of the Gentleman 81
Magasme for May, 1900, inquiries wheth-
er the writer of the epitaph did well or
i'll. lie says, also, that some may admire
it on account of its being an elegant ex.
ample of that figure of rhetoric called
aposiopesis, in which the writer breaks off
suddenly, as if unwilling or unable to say
what was in his mind. The graveyard
from which the inscription was taken
is in one of the central counties of Eng
land
you would behold inscribed on this stone
the character of
slearned, skilful, tender-hearted ply
sician
warm friend
devout christian
bad not the person here deposited
by his last testament forbidden
anything more TO be said Of him than
Here lieth -
who died on the 10th of Feb.
in the year Of our lord,
1851,
. ofhisage
GT."
We see how far many of the opitaphs
| have given come from reaching the
standard mentioned by the writer's Ihaye
quoted, and we cannet help but notice
their many errors and deficiencies but in
s,,ita ~ al thasa fault. and tbo d;sc,ra 20