In All Saints' Church, at Cambridge, there
are some really beautiful lines upon the
death of a young person:

"She took the cup of life to sip,
Too bitter 'twas to drain,
She put it meekly from her lip,
And went to sleep again."

And here are a couple of simple but suggestive
lines (the conclusion of a dull stanza),
which are fit to stand by the side of them:

"I am amazed that Death, that tyrant grim,
Should think on me, who never thought on him."

In Tintagel Church, Cornwall (as I read it
in my note-book), there are these four lines,
of which the latter two would not, I think,
be unworthy of any of our British poets:

"The body that here buried lies
By lightning fell death's sacrifice,
To him Elijah's fate was given,
He rode on flames of fire to heaven."

There is an incompleteness about many
epitaphs, of which this one in Wrexham
Churchyard is a case in point:

"Here lies John Shore;
I say no more;
He was alive
In —-65."

And in others there is more stated than is
quite necessary. In Grantham churchyard
we read:

"John Palfreyman, who is buried here,
Was aged four and twenty year;
And near this place his mother lies;
Likewise his father, when he dies."

This superfluousness sometimes extends even
to manifest falsehood as in Llanymynech
churchyard, in Montgomeryshire, where it is
thus written:

"Here lies John Thomas,
And his three children dear,
Two are buried at Oswestry,
And one here."

Here is a gentlewoman, who, if I may so
speak of a gentlewoman departed, appears to
have thought by no means small beer of herself:

"A good mother I have been,
Many troubles I have seen,
All my life I've done my best,
And so I hope my soul's at rest."

I wonder that she does not say, she is sure
of it! Many appear buoyant, however, not
so much from a sense of their own merits,
as through a natural elasticity of disposition,
as in the case that follows:

"Here lies I. There's an end to my woes,
And my spirit at length at aise is;
With the tip of my nose,
And the tops of my toes,
Turned up to the roots of the daisies."

Others have the same philosophical spirit,
tinged with a good-humoured sarcasm:

"Here lies I at the chancel door,
Here lies I because I am poor,
At the further end the more you pay,
But here lies I as warm as they."

Lastly, there is a large class of epitaphs,
which are founded on the profession of the
deceased person: sometimes described in
verse, sometimes introduced for the evocation
of a spiritual analogy. These are not bad
lines upon a fisherman:

"This man by worms was fed,
The worms procured him fish,
But now that he is dead,
The worms will have their dish."

Although somewhat deficient in tenderness,
the same charge must be laid against this In
Memoriam to Mr. John Law:

"Here lies John Law,
Attorney at Law;
And when he died,
The devil cried,—-
'Give us your paw,
John Law,
Attorney at Law.'"

The following reference to one departed
Mr. Strange of the same profession is, on the
contrary, complimentary; and I have only
to hope that the fact of the case is as stated,
and that the writer was not led away by the
obvious opportunity of making a point, to
exaggerate the virtues of the deceased. It
looks a little suspicious:

"Here lies an honest lawyer,
And that is Strange."

Doctor I. Letsome wrote the following
epitaph for his own tombstone; but it is not
likely that he allowed his friends, or at least
his patients, to read it until he was under
the turf, or out of practice:

"When people's ill, they comes to I,
I physics, bleeds, and sweats 'em;
Sometimes they live, sometimes they die;
What's that to I?           I. Letsome " (lets 'em).

The best of these professional adieux is,
however, that on a certain Mrs. Shoven, a
cook. It consists of two stanzas, or, as she
might have called them herself, a couple of
courses:

"Underneath this crust
Lies the mouldering dust
Of Eleanor Batchelor Shoven,
Well-versed in the arts
Of pies, custards, and tarts,
And the lucrative trade of the oven.

"When she'd lived long enough,
She made her last puff,
A puff by her husband much praised;
And now she doth lie
And make a dirt pie,
In hopes that her crust may be raised."