The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1876-04-05

art grief was very simply expressed
left to the imagination wholly. Next
the survivors Of the family knelt in
marble. Then came all eruption OF
fat cherubs, with pudgy little fists
stuck in their half-shut eyes, break
ing out all over the tombs. Widows
next, pretty, done in alabaster, flung
themselves in limp desolation on the
supposed sarcophagus and wept above
their dead lords-mourning not as
ones without hope (of second or
third) let us trust. Then come figures
typifying this, that, and the other
virtue; Faith, Wisdom, and Fortiude,
for instance, and you see them
on every hand loafing about
monumental premises without
seeming to have anything in particu-
lar to do. (which is Faith and which
is Fortitude," do you ask? "E'rs a
one you please, my little dears; you
pays your money and you. takes your
choice. - Over the <tombs of states
men, too, where once was nothing fig
urative but the composed figure of the
departed, we now have Wisdom and
Eloquence hanging up their fddles, as
1T were, in mute despair, while over
graves military and naval the muse of
History becomes so dumbfOunded with
grief that she forgets how to spell the
name she is writing. Seraphs with
daggers, angels on side-saddles. It is
not easy to chisel grief, perhaps-not
half so easy as to gouge the public; and
carving tears in stone is more difficult
no doubt than making bricks; but there
ever somebody dies-though it is i'm
possible to refrain from poetry. And
of poetry in the Abby there is no lack
showing that the obituary bard Of
the Philadelphia Ledger has had his
counterpart Oh earth in all genera
lions.
INSCRIPTIONS ON TOMBs.
All poetry, however is not bad, and
occasionally verse has reason for
being. That on the little tablet affixed
to the pillar before us, so high that
you must climb to read, is touching,
and has an association.
lie that would give me Grace but what is
Hers,
Must say her death has not
Made only her dear Scot,
But Virtue, Worth and Sweetness Widow
erS.
This was the wife of Col. Scot. one
of Cromwell's officers, beheaded in
1860. ''Grace" died in 1045, and seems
to have been one of the few connected
with the reformation who escaped dis
interment at the restoration. Crom-
well, Ireton, and Bradshaw, it will be
remembered, were dug up, dragged to
Tyburn at the tails of horses. and
there hanged, beheaded, and buried
under the gallows- Sail of which looks
very much like ''kicking a fellow when
he's down.
Another tablet near by tells Of Han.
nah, wife of Dean Vincent, that she
was ''handsome without pride, pleas
ant without levity, a good Christians
without superstition From which
one might infer that good Christians
are apt to be superstitious, and that
Hannah is specially mentioned as be-
ing an exception to the rule. But
antithesis- limiting what a person is
by telling what he or she is not:
seems favorite way of description
and inscription. Horace Walpole tells
of his mother: s'She had beauty and
wit. without vanity, and cultivated
the arts without affectation; she was
devout. though without ,bigotry to any
sect; and was without prejudice to any
party, though the wife of a minis
ter
what is that meant for? asks
Mrs. Morningglory, pointing to astain-
ed glass window.
~ memoir window to Sir Henry
VIM. Barnard, erected by his widow,
Lady Barnard,'' make answer. Mo-
ses is shown, with his hands stayed up
by Aaron and Hur."
''Aaron and her, indeed!'' shrieked
Mrs. Morningglory. 'sWas there ever
anything so ridiculous the blasphe-
nous female!''
a