The National tribune., 1881-11-05
PUNNING EPITAPHS.

fUNNING EFIIAFHSs
Of epitaphs remarkable for their play upcn
words, good specimen was furnished by Ben
| jamin Franklin:
The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer, like the
of old book its contents torn out and stripped
of its lettering gliding lies here food for worms;
but the work shall not be wholly lost, for it will
believed appear in new and more perfect
edition, corrected and amended by the author He was
! born January 6, l706; died -, IL.
brother printer, under the impression that
the art preservative of arts could furnish still
better material out of which to compose an
epitaph for one who was so skillful a craftsman.
suggested the following as an alternative inscrip
| ton:
Benjamin Franklin, the of his profession the type
of honesty, the of all and although the Ca death
has put his existence, each of his life has been
without a Il.
The following epitaph on a matchmaker makes
exhaustive use of trade phrases:
Here lies in horizontal position the outside case of
George Routeigh Matchmaker whose abilities in that
line honor to his profession; integrity the
handspring and prudence the regulator of all his actions
in life; humane, generous and liberal, his hand
stopped till he had relieved distress nicely regulated
were all his movements that he went wrong ex-
cep when set agoing by people who did not know his
key then he easily set right again; he had
the art of disposng of his time well that his hours
light, till unlucky movement put period to his
existence he departed this life November H. 1902, aged
81 wound up in hopes of being taken in hand by his
Maker and of being thoroughly cleaned, repaired and
set a-going in the world to come
Here is epitaph of an earlier date car
penter at Oakham, named John Spong (ob. 1886:
Who many sturdy oak has laid along,
Felrd by Deaths surer hatchet here lies Spong.
Posts oft he made, yet neer place could get,
And lived by railing, though he was wit;
Old saws he had although antiquarian
And styles corrected, yet grammarian.
Long lived he Oakhams premier architect;
And, lasting as his fame, tomb to erect
In vain seek artist such he,
Whose pales and gules for eternity.
So here he rests from all iifes tolls and follies-
Oh spare, kind Heaven, his fellow-laborer Hollies
The following from Berkeley church-yard on
| Thomas Pierce (ob. 1863, relates to self-made
man, who was skilled in more than one branch
of workmanship, and who not without honor
in his life from his fellow-tOwnSmen:
Here lyeth Thomas Pierce, whom no man taught
Yet he in Iron Brass, and Silver wrought.
He Jacks and Clocks and Watches with art made
And mended too when others work did fade
OF Berkeley five times mayor this artist was;
And yet this mayor, this artist, but grasse.
When his watch downe the last day,
He that made watches had not made key
To wind it up, but useless it must lie
Until ne rise again no more to die.
The shoemaker's trade with such words as
"awl," sole" and last" to play upon has fur
nished some good epitaphs of this class, and the
following blacksmith's epitaph has been thought
so appropriate that it may be found in American
and colonial as well as in English church-yards:
Ny sedge and Hammer lie reclined
My Bellows too have lost their wind
My Fires extinguished; Forge decayed
And in the dust my Wise is laid
My Coal is spent my IRONS gone;
The last Nails driven, my work is done
An example of this epitaph may be found ia
Low Moor church-yard On the tombstone of
Christopher Barlow C1824.) The earliest ex-
ample is to be found in Lincoln church-yard,
where it is inscribed to the memory of David
Fletcher, smith to this church lob 1744.) A
similar eptaph at st. Albans has the following
additional lines, which are by no means an in
prOyement:
My ffre-dry'd corpse lies here at rest,
My soul, snoke-like assembled to be blest.
While another at Chipping Sodbury, in Glouces-
tershire, is put into the third person and con-
cludes:
His body's here. clutched in the dust.
'Tis hoped his soul is with the just.
There is a curious epitaphial blunder on a
tombstone at MonknewtOn near Drogheda,
erected by one Patrick Kelly in memory of his
posterity!" There is all epitaph at st. Andrews,
Plymouth, on the only surviving son" of Ad-
miral Vernon. The following is from Llanymy-
mech church-yard MontgOmeryshire:
Here lies John Thomas
And his children dear;
Two buried at Oswestry,
And one here
More ludicrous than any OF these is the in
scription ON stone at Keel, in MontgOmeryshire:
Here lies the remains of Thomas Nicos, who died in
Phladelphia March, I553 Had he lived he would have
been buried here.
A companion blunder to that at MonknewtOn
is found in the church-yard at MontrOse, where
lie the bodies of George Young and Isabel Guthrie,
'and all their posterity for more than 80 years
backward ,i-ROme ,JOHrnGl
PERFECT CUP OF COFFEE.
Coffee is the fine issue of Eastern hospitality
the climax of the visit. One recognizes, on en-