Page 43 - Graveyard

G r av e y ar d H u m o r | 41

74. On a Landlord:—

Hic Jacet Walter Gun,
Sometime landlord of the Tun;
Sic transit gloria mundi!
He drank hard upon Friday,
That being a high day,
Then took to his bed and died upon Sunday!

75. From St. Botolph’s, Aldersgate:—

Hic conjuncta suo recubat Francisca marito;
Et cinis est unis; quæ fuit una caro,
Huc cineres conferre suos soror Anna jubebat;
Corpore sic uno pulvere trina jacent.
Sic Opifex rerum Omnipotens; qui, trinus et unus,
Pulvere ab hoc uno corpora trina dabit.

Which may be rendered into English as follows:—

Close to her husband, Frances, join’d once more,
Lies here—one dust, which was one flesh before;
Here, as enjoin’d, her sister Anne’s remains
Were laid: one dust, three bodies thus contains.
Th’ Almighty Source of things, the immense three-one,
Will raise three bodies from thy dust alone.

76. From Clevedon, Somersetshire.

The secluded village church of Clevedon, on the Bristol Channel,
presented in January, 1859, a memorable and impressive scene, when the
remains of the late Henry Hallam, the historian, were conveyed from
Clevedon Court, the seat of Sir Arthur Hallam Elton, M.P., nephew of the
deceased, to a grave which, through a mysterious inversion of the common
order of succession, had been already rendered classic ground by the ashes
of his two gifted sons. The funeral was strictly private, but it accomplished