The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1882-06-15
Quaint Epitaphs.

upon words a good specimen was fur
nished by Ben amin Franklin:
The body of benjamin Franklin, printer,
like the cover of an old book, its contents torn
out and stripped of i lettering and gliding,
lies here, Oh to worm; but lie work Shall
not be wholly iost-1o ii Will, as he believed,
appear once ino;e in a new Il ii more perfect
edition, corrected ant amen,ied by the author.
He was born auuary 6, 1705; d ed =, IL.
A brother printer, under the impress
sion that 1.-the art prnServatiye OF arts
could furnish still better, material out of
which TO compose an epitaph for one
who was So sAilful Il craftsman, sug-
gested the following AS an alternative in
scription:
Benjamin franklin, the of his profession,
the type of hon V, the ,f all and although
the gSY OF death has t,uf a to his existence,
each OF his life has been wi hout a |. .
The following epitaph of watch
maker makes exhaustive use of trade
phrases:
Here rs p io: .nn'ai ,sitior the outside
case OF t.rs"t. i.ni. i; hsat- VII re
abilities nat iinc we're Lo:iof To his pro-
fessirn; in. egriy WAS the main-sprin and
prudence the regulator of all the actions OF
his lie; hum he, generous and liberal; his
hand never stopped until he had relieved dis-
tres; nicely reg .ilatcd were all his move
ments that he never went wrong except when
set ago ng by people wlo did not know his
key; even then he was easily set Alright again;
he had the art of dspOsing of his time so well
that his hours giided away in one continual
round of pleasure aud delight, till an unlucky
movement put period to his existence; he
departed his life November IA, 1902 aged 81,
wound up, in hopes of being taken in hand by
his Maker, aud of being thoroughly cleaned,
rtfeVed chS es-i q a-going in the world to come.
of arlto dat
on a carpenter at Oakham, named John
Spong Cob. 1866:
Who man a sturdy oak has laid along,
Felied by Deaths surer hatchet, here lies
Spong,
Posts oft he made, yet meier a place could get,
And lived by railing. though he was no wit;
Old saws he had, although no antiquarian,
And styles corrected, yet was no grammarian.
Long hv'd he Oakham's premier architect;
And, lasting as his fame a tomb to erect
In vain we seek an artist such as he,
Whose pales and gules were for eternity.
So here he rests from all life's tolls and fol-
Oh! spare, kind heaven, his fellow-lab-rer
llollies
The following from Berkeley church
yard on Thomas Pierce (ob. 1861, re-
lates to a self-made man, who was skilled
in more than one branch of workman
ship, and who was not without honor in
his life from his fellow -townsmen:
Here lieth Thomas Pierce, whom no man
taught,
Yet be in Iron, Bras 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, was but grasse.
When his own watch ran dOwne on the last
day,
He that made watches had not ma 'e key
To wind it up, but useless it must lie
Until he ri again no more to die.
The shoemaker's trade, with such
words as ''awl, " .'sole'' and ''last" to
play upon, has furnished some good epi-
taphs 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 En-
glish churchyards:
My ledge and Hammer lie reclined,
My bellows, too, have lost their wind;
My Fires extinguished; Forge decayed,
And in the Dust my Vice is laid; 49,,
My Coal is spent; ms IRONS go e;
The last Nairs driven, my work is done
An example of this epitaph may be
found in Low Moor churchyard, on the
tombstone OF Christopher Barlow OS24).
The earliest example is said 10 be found
in Lincoln chnrchyard, where it is in
scribed to the memory of David Fletcher,
smith to this church (ob. 174D. A sim
liar epitaph at st. Albans has the follow
ing addith,1:! lines. which are by no
means an improvement:
My fire-dry corpse lies here at rest,
My soul, smoke-like, ascending to be blest,
While another at Chipping Sodbury, in
Gloucestershire, is put into the third per-
son and concludes:
His body here, clutched in the dust,
Ills hoped his soul is with the just.
There is Il curious epitaphial hlunder
on :: toni'.s'-:," - inllhnewton, near
Drog.lc,l.l. erected by one Patrick Kelly,
Gin memory of his posterityr' There is
an epitaph at st. Andrews, Plymouth,
on ''the only surviving SON. of Admiral
Vernon. The following is from Llany-
mynech church-yard, Montgomeryshire:
Here lies John Thomas
And his children dear;
Two buried at Oswcs+rv.
4uG lie q.
More ludicrous than any of these is the
inscription on stone at Keel, in Mont
gomeryshire:
Here lie the remains of Thomas Nicols, who
died in Philadelphia, March, 1853. Had be
lived he would have been buried here.
A companion blunder to that at Monk
newton is found in the church-yard at
Montrose, where lie the bodies of G. Gorge
Young and Isabel Guthrie, "and all their
posterity for more than fifty years back
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