Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1896-07-28
HUMOR IN EPlTAPH.
Some Newly Compiled Specimens of Church
yard Wit, Wisdom and Satire.


Some Newly Compiled Specimens of Church.
yard Wit, Wisdom and 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 some miscellaneous grotesques
Here lies me and my three daughters,
Brought here by using Cheltenham waters
II we had stuck to EPSON salts,
We wouldn't be in these here vaults.
From New Hampshire churchyard:
To all my friends bid adieu,
A more sudden death you never knew.
As was leading the old mare to drink,
She kicked and killed me quicker'n wink.
On an East Tennessee lady:
She lived life of virtue and died of cholera
morbus. caused by eating green fruit, in hope
of a blessed immortality, at the early age Of
q years, months and 16 days. Reader, "Go
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:
Hallelujah Hallelujee
The following must be taken as fling
at noble profession:
Here lies the corpse of DIR. Chard
Who filed the half of this churchyard.
This is as bad as the unkind hint con-
veyed in the following in 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 piece OF
atrocious doggerel to be seen in Selby
churchyard in Yorkshire:
Here lies my wife, o sad sattern and shrew
II 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 misogynism:
This dear little spot is the joy Of my life,
1t raises my flowers and covers my wife.
I 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.
My wifes dead and here she lies,
No man laughs and no man cries.
Where she 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 thankit.
In the following the tables are turned:
Here lies the body of Mary Ford,
Whose soul, we trust, is with the Lord;
But if for hell she's changed this life,
'Tis 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 t'other.
Also the famous one of Sir John Strange
Here lies an honest lawyer,
That is Strangel
A "happy conceit'' it was doubtless
thought in 1910 to write over o member Of
parliament named White:
Here lies John, a burning, shining light
Whose name, life, actions all alike were White
The following is by Swift on the Earl Of
Kildare:
Who killed Kildare? Who dared Kildare to kill,
Death killed Kildare-who dare kill whom he
will
Here are few miscellaneous examples,
the first on Mr.. Fish:
Worms are bait for fish, but here's sudden
change;
Fish is bait for worms-is not that passing
stranger
On William Button in chrlrchyard neal
Sunbury:
O sun, moon, stars and We celestial polesl
Are graves, then, dwindled into Button-holesi
On Foote, the comedian:
Foote from his earthly stage, alas, is hurled;
Death took him off, who took off all the world.
Is the satire in the following examples
intentional?
80 years. She lived with her husband fifty
years and died in the confidential hope Of o
better life.
Here lies Bernard Lightfoot, who was acct.
dentally killed in the 45th year Of his age.
This monument was erected by his grateful
family.
Current Literature.