Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1885-06-26
Some Epitaphs.

e0lemnlty than thut oil death Woulu Oe
impossible, the student of the literature
of tie 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
a 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 a hos.
And it may have been in deep dejec-
tion that the friends of the unfortunate
youth killed during a pyrotechnic dis
play, wrote upon his tombstone:
Here lie,
Killed by sky
Rocket in my eye.
While its Caledonian origin borne In
mind Gt halls from Edinburgh, there was
probably no premeditated leyity 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
u
his brother.
1t is difficult to say whether in Jest OF
monition the following was inscribed to
the memory of an earl of Kildare:
Who killed Kildare9-Who dared Kildare to
killl
Death kllied 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 profes,
sional ministrations shave filled the half
of this churchyard" have formed the
principal subjects. Exception is made
in favor of legal ornament one Mr..
Strange, but at the expense of his broth.
er practitioners
Here lies an honest lawyer-Strange
The proposed epitaph to the eminent
cook, Alexis Soyer:
Peace 10 his ashes,
admirable is that upon a deceased
dyer
Here lies man who dyed of 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
If said regretted her-I should lie too
A laxative spinster 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.
A request for burial in 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.
-GuiLstieLd, 1863
The following, dedicated to the men,
DRY of departed matrons, is worth rescu-
ing from oblivion:
Some have children, some have none;
Here lies the mother of twenty-one.
-WooLstGnton,
Independent of its interest as record
of longevity, there is 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 severe blow is dealt to the sanitary
reputation of the medicinal spring OF
Cheltenham in the lines below: b..
Here 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 church
yard in New Jersey:
Reader, pass on, nor waste your precious
time
On bad biography or better rhyme,
For what am this crumbling clay assures,
And what l was is no conc TN of yours.