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G r av e y ar d H u m o r | 13

belgica, collegit,” T. Swertius, Antwerp, 1645 : two-thirds of this collection
is in Latin, and many of the examples given are considered good. In Carl
Julius Weber’s Demokritos there is an essay entitled, “Weber Komische
Grabschriften,” from which a little matter has been borrowed in the
writing of this introduction. The writer remembers having seen other
collections, but cannot bring to mind, whilst he is writing, the correct titles
of them.
In the Poet’s Orchard, a poetical work by the Rev. Thos. Marsden, there
are several original epitaphs given, which are remarkable for nothing
perhaps excepting their simplicity. The following is a fair specimen:—

Within this grave
Lies William Brave.

For more of the same sort the reader is referred to the work itself.
Verses and quotations are often misplaced on tombstones. Charles
th
Lamb, in a letter to Wordsworth, 19 October, 1810, gives an example of
this sort, where he says that in Islington churchyard is to be seen an
epitaph on an infant who died “Ætatis four months,” with the following
inscription appended: “Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days
may be long in the land,” etc.! The following is another specimen of the
same description, copied by the writer from a stone in Pembrey
churchyard: at first sight it was supposed to be a verse of poetry; it turned
out, however, to be four lines of Scripture and John Bunyan jumbled
together:—

Set thine house in order,
For thou shalt die.
Christian at the sight of
Cross loses his burden.

Lamb was not pleased with the nonsense that was to be met with in his day
on tombstones, and in his New Year’s Eve said, “I conceive disgust at
those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities inscribed upon your
ordinary tombstones.” He evidently thought burial subjects should be
treated in a more serious manner: he once said in a letter to Bernard
th
Barton, 17 September, 1823, that “satire does not look pretty upon a
tombstone.” He wanted the inscriptions to contain some useful lessons to