The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-06-16
HUMORTN EPITAPH.
Some Newly Compiled Specimens Of Church
yard Wit, Wisdom AID Satire

Some Newly Compiled Specimens ofChurels
yard Wit, Wisdom AID Satire.
In the churchyard Of St John, Worcester
is an epitaph which, if brevity is the soul
Of wit has high claim On that character:
Honest John
s dead and gone.
Here are ssme miscellaneous grotesques;
Here lies me and my three daughters.
Brought here by using Cheltenham waters.
IF we had stuck to Epson salts,
We wouldn Z be in these here vaults.
From a New Hampshire churchyard:
To all my friends I bid adieu,
A more sudden death you never knew.
As was leading the old mare to drink
She kicked and killed me quicker wink
On an East Tennessee lady:
She lived a life of virtue and died Of cholera
morbus. caused by eating green fruit, in hope
of a blessed immortality, at the early age Of
p years. months and 16 days. Reader. s'C5o
thou and do likewise"
The following was composed by three
Scotch friends to whom the person com
memOrated had left a legacy, with the
hope expressed that they would honor him
by some record of their regrets. The first
friend composed the line which naturally
opened the epitaph:
Provost Peter Patterson was Provost Of Dun
dee.
The second added
Provost Patterson. here lies he.
The third could suggest no other con-
clusion than:
Haleluiahl Halleluieel
The following must be taken as a fling
at a noble profession;
Here lies the corpse Of DR.. Chard,
Who filed the half Of this churchyard.
This is as bad as the unkind hint con-
veyed in the following in a churchyard
near Newmarket:
Here lies the body Of Sarah Sexton,
Who never did aught to vex one.
Not like the woman under the next stone
Domestic troubles have been laid bare
on the tombstone from the time Of the
Greeks and Romans. Here is a piece Of
atrocious doggerel to be seen in Selby
churchyard in Yorkshire.
Here lies my wife, a sad slattern and shrew;
If I said regretted her, should lie too.
The following, which frequently appears
in collections OF epitaphs, are not credited
to any locality and may be mere wander
ing bits of epigrammatic nisogynisIn:
This dear little spot is the joy Of my life,
1t raises my flowers and covers my wife.
am not grieved, my dearest life.
Sleep On-I've got another wife;
Therefore cannot come to thee
For must go and live with she.
Ny wife's dead and here she lies,
No man laughs and no man cries;
Where she's gone, or how she fares,
Nobody knows and nobody cares.
Here lies my poor wife, without bed or blanket
But dead as door nail, and God be thanl1it.
In the following the tables are turned:
Here les the body of Mary Ford,
Whose soul, We trust, is with the Lord;
But if for hell she's changed this life,
IT'S better than being John Ford S wife.
Intentional drolleries frequently take
the form of puns. Among these should
rank the epitaph on Mr.. FOOte of Norwich
Here lies one Foote, whose death many thou
sands save,
For Death hath now one foot within the grave;
And the one on Mr.. Box:
Here lies one Box within another.
The one Of wood was very good:
We cannot say so much for tother.
Also the famous one of Sir John Strange:
Here lies an honest lawyer.
That is Strangel
A s'happy eonceit" it was doubtless
thought in 1910 to write over member of
parliament named White:
Here lies a John, a burning, shining light
Whose name, life, actions, all alike were Whitei
The following is by Swift on the Earl of
Kildare:
Who killed Kildare2 Who dared Kildare to kill?
Death killed Kildare-whO dare kill whom he
will.
Here are a few miscellaneous examples
the first on a Mr.. Fish:
Worms are bait for fish, but here's a sudden
change;
Fish is bait for worms-is not that passing
stranger
On William Button in a churchyard near
Sunbury:
o sun, moon, stars and ye celestial polesI
Are graves, then, dwinGled into Button holes?
On Foote, the comedian:
Foote from his earthly stage, alas, is hurled;
Death took him OF, who took OF all the world.
Is the satire in the following examples
intentiOnal2
Maria Brown, wife of Timothy Brown, aged
80 years. She lived with her husband fifty
years and died in the confidential hope Of a
better life.
Here lies Bernard Lightfoot, who was acct
dentally killed in the 18th year Of his age.
This monument was erected by his grateful
family.
Current Literature.