Quaint Epitaphs

And what is somewhat rareish,
He was born bred and hanged
In this e'er parish.

Here I lie at the chancel door
And I lie here because I am poor;
For the farther in the more you pay,
But here I lie as warm as they.

Pickering Churchyard.

Death comes to all, none can resist his dart
At his command the dearest friends must part.
A mournful widow who this truth doth own
In gratitude erects this humble stone.

Childwell, England.

Here lies the body of
John Smith.
Buried in the cloisters
If he don't jump at the last trump,
Call, Oysters!

England.

If Heaven be pleased when sinners cease to sin,
If Hell be pleased when sinners enter in,
If earth be pleased when ridded of a knave,
Then all are pleased for Coleman's in his grave.

Samuel Gardner was blind in one eye and in a moment of confusion he stepped out of a receiving and discharging door in one of the warehouses into the ineffable glories of the celestial sphere.

To the memory of Ric Richards who by a gangrene first lost a toe, then a leg and lastly his life.

Ah cruel Death to make three meals of one,
To taste and eat, and eat till all was gone.
But know thou tyrant when the trump shall call,
He'll find his feet, and stand where thou shalt fall.

Poet & Shoemaker

Joseph Blackett

Stranger behold interred together
The lords of learning and of leather.
Poor Joe is gone but left his awl
You'll find his relics in a stall.
His works were neat and often found
Well stitched and with morocco bound.
Tread lightly where the bard is laid;
He cannot mend the shoe he made.
Yet he is happy in his hole
With verse immortal as his soul;
But still to business he held fast
And stuck to Pheabus to the last.
Then who shall say so good a fellow
Was only leather and prunello?
For character he did not lack it
And if he did't were shame to Blackett.

Poor Betty Conway, she drank lemonade at a masquerade,
So now she's dead and gone away.

Robert Master, Undertaker

Here lies Bob Master. Faith! t'was very hard
To take away an honest Robin's breath.
Yes, surely Robin was full well prepared
For he was always looking out for death.

Taken from "The Lady's Magazine and Musical Repository," Jan., 1801.

Epitaph on a Bird

Here lieth, aged three months the body of Richard Acanthus a young person of unblemished character. He was taken in his callow infancy from the wing of a tender parent by the rough and pitiless hand of a two-legged animal without feathers.

Though born with the most aspiring disposition and unbending love of freedom he was closely confined in a grated prison and scarcely permitted to view those fields of which he had an undoubted charter.

Deeply sensible of this infringement of his natural rights he was often heard to petition for redress in the most plaintive notes of harmonious sorrow. At length his imprisoned soul burst the prison which his body could not and left a lifeless heap of beauteous feathers.

If suffering innocence can hope for retribution, deny not to the gentle shade of this unfortunate captive the humble though uncertain hope of animating some happier form; or trying his new fledged pinions in some happy elysium, beyond the reach of

Man

the tyrant of this lower world.

On three children

"Who plucked my choicest flowers?" the gardener cried
"The Master did," a well known voice replied.
"'Tis well they are all his" the gardener said,
And meekly bowed his reverential head.
Beneath this stone in sound repose
Lies William Rich of Lydeard Close.
Eight wives he had yet none survive
And likewise children eight times five,
From whom an issue vast did pour
Of great grandchildren five times four.
Rich born, rich bred, yet Fate adverse