The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-06-26

bN"hO 1FsP"s
Though to select a subject of greater
solemnity than that of death would be
impossible, the student of the literature
of the churchyard cannot fail to be struck
with the important part played therein by
humor-often of the broadcast descrip-
ton. To do the writers justice, says
q Detroit journal, it is in many cases Of
the unconscious kind. There was no in
territorial disrespect TO the memory of
John Ross
Kicked by q hoss.
And it may have been in deep dejec-
ton that the friends of the unfortunate
youth killed during a pyrotechnic dis
play, wrote upon his tombstone:
Here l lie,
Killed by a sky
Rocket in my eye.
While its Caledonian origin borne in
mind Git halls from Edinburgh, there was
probably no premeditated levity TO the
lines in memory of
John Macpherson-that wonderful person
Six foot two without his shoe
And slew at Waterloo.
The humor of the following is merely
due to peculiar punctuation:
Erected to the memory of John Phillips
Accidentally shot as q mark of affection by
his brother.
It is difficult to say whether in jest or
monition the following was inscribed to
the memory of an earl of Kildare:
Who killed Kildare!-Who dared Kildare TO
kill?
Death killed Kildare. Who dare kill whom
he will.
Sepulchral references to the former
pursuits of the departed have been very
common. Lawyers whose familiarity
with "ways that are dark" have called
for censure; and doctors whose profess
sional ministrations 'have filed the half
of this churchyard" have formed the
principal subjects. Exception is made
in favor of a legal ornament, one Mr..
Strange, but at the expense of his broth
er practitioners
Here lies an honest lawyer-Strangel
The proposed epitaph to the eminent
cook, Alexis Soyer:
Peace TO his ashes,
Is well known. Less known but more
admirable is that upon a deceased
dyer
Here lies a man who dyed of n wool a great
store,
One day he died himself-and dyed no more.
The conjugal relation, sad to say, has
suffered sharply at the hands Of the cpl
taph writer-and, sadder still to record,
the weaker vessel has called for the Sc
verest animadversian. Epitaphs of this
class have usually been coarse aud vul-
gar, in the strain of the following:
Here lies my poor wife-a sad slattern and
shrew;
If I said 1 regretted her-I should lie too.
A laxative s~pinster is awarded these
lines:
Under this stone the body lies of Arabella
Young,
Who on the twenty fourth of May began to
hold her tongue.
Independent of its interest as a record
of longevity, there is a sporting flavor
about the following reference to one
Stephen Rumblood, of Brightwell, quite
unique:
He lived to 105, hearty and strong;
100 to 5 you don't live as long.
A request for burial in a particular
spot is not uncommon, though seldom
expressed with naivete of the following:
Under the yew tree, buried he would be,
Because his father he, planted this yew tree.
-GuiLSteid, 1869.
The following, dedicated to the mem
DRY of departed NATIONS, is worth rescu-
ing from oblivion:
Some have children, some have none;
Here lies the mother of twenty-one.
-WoOtStdnton,
A severe blow is dealt to the sanitary
reputation Of the medicinal spring Of
Cheltenham in the lines below:
Here l lie. and my three daughters,
All killed through drinking Cheltenham
waters.
Had we but stuck to EPSON salts
We shouldn't be lying in these cold vaults.
In fitting conclusion may be quoted
the following rebuke administered to
the morbid curiosity to satisfy which
has been one of the missions of the cpl
taph. In slightly varied forms it has
been met with in divers corners of Eng
land, but was last heard of in a church.
yard in New Jersey:
Reader, pass on, nor waste your precious
time
On bad biography or better rhyme,
For what l am this crumbling clay assures,
And what l was is no concern of yours.