Page 17 - Graveyard

G r av e y ar d H u m o r | 15

The provincialism of a district may frequently be detected in country
churchyards; thus, when the poet rhymes praise with rise, we may be
pretty sure in guessing him to be a Gloucestershire man, though we might
be unable to fix him at Wapley, where the lines are engraved. The verse
runs thus:—

Now at that great and joyful day,
When all men must arise,
I hope to be amongst the just,
A singing of His praise.

The same thing may be detected at Berkeley, where the poet makes day
and key to rhyme. (See 356.)
Of epigrammatic epitaphs there are many: that on a Cardinal is the best
we have met with:—

Here lies a Cardinal, who wrought
Both good and evil in his time;
The good he did was good for nought;
Not so the evil! that was prime.

In Bath Abbey is to be found the following gentle piece of satire:—

These walls, adorned with monumental bust,
Shew how Bath waters serve to lay the dust.

A couplet which reminds us of the Cheltenham epitaph:—

Here lies I and my three daughters,
Kill’d by drinking Cheltenham waters;
Had we a’ stuck to Epsom-salts
We’d not a bin lying in these ‘ere vaults.

And not to burden our readers with French epitaphs, we are tempted to
give one, which is, like many others, very amusing:—