Quaint Epitaphs

His wealth and fortune did reverse.
He lived and died immensely poor
July the tenth aged ninety-four.

Ellington.

Here rest the remains of Alexander McKinstry.

A kind husband, tender parent, dutiful son, affectionate brother, faithful friend, generous master, and obliging neighbor. The house looks desolate and mourns, every door groans doleful as it turns. The pillars languish and each silent wall in grief laments the masters fall.

Joseph Horton, Pedlar

I lodged have in many a town
And travelled many a year.
Till age and death have brought me down
To my last lodging here.

Falkirk, Eng.

Here lies the body of Robert Gordon,
Mouth almighty and teeth according.
Stranger tread lightly on this wonder,
If he opens his mouth you are gone to thunder.

Here under this sod and under these trees
Is buried the body of Solomon Pease.
But here in this hole lies only his pod
His soul is shelled out and gone up to God.

Sacred to the memory of Anthony Drake,
Who died for peace and quietness sake.
His wife was constantly scolding and scoffing,
So he sought repose in a twelve dollar coffin.

At rest beneath this slab of stone,
Lies stingy Jimmy Wyett.
He died one morning just at ten
And saved a dinner by it.

Here lies the body of Sarah Sexton
She was a wife that never vexed one.
But I can't say as much for the one at the next stone.

I Dionysius underneath this tomb
Some sixty years of age have reached my doom.
Ne'er having married, think it sad,
And I wish my father never had.

Underneath this marble hearse
Lies the subject of all verse;
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death ere thou hast slain another
Wise and fair and good as she
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

Kent.

Here lies two brothers by misfortune surrounded;
One died of his wounds but the other was drownded.

Epitaph of Susan Blake

Written by Sir Thomas Moore at her urgent entreaty

Good Susan Blake in royal state
Arrived at last at Heaven's gate.

(After an absence of years and having fallen out with her he added these two lines.)

"But Peter met her with a club
And knocked her back to Beelzebub."

Beneath this stone in hopes of Zion,
Doeth lay the landlord of the Lion.
His son keeps in the business still
Resigned unto His heavenly will.

John Palfryman who is buried here
Was aged four and twenty years.
And near this place his Mother lies
Likewise his father when he dies.

Salisbury.

Farewell vain world I've had enough of thee,
And value not what thou canst say of me;
Thy smiles I court not, nor thy frowns I fear,
All's one to me, my head lies quiet here;
What faults thou'st seen in me take care to shun
And look at home, there's something to be done

Like a tender rose-tree was my spouse to me.
Her offspring plucked too long deprived of life is she.
Three went before, her life went with the sixth:
I stay with the three our sorrows for to mix,
Till Christ our only hope our joys doth fix.

Shetford Churchyard.

My grandfather was buried here,