Page 78 - Graveyard

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

Because he dropt no sooner.
Providence seemed to wind him up
For fourscore years; yet ran he on
Nine winters more: till, like a clock,
Worn out with beating time,
The wheels of weary life
At last stood still.

210. On Matthew Prior.

The writer is not quite certain what Prior’s epitaph is, but has thought that
the following remarks may help his readers to form their own opinions:—
A writer in the Quarterly Review for January, 1865, says that Prior, who
was most diligent in ransacking Greek, Latin, French, and English
storehouses to come by his epigrams, in giving the epitaph for himself,—

Gentlemen, here, by your leave,
Lie the bones of Matthew Prior,
A son of Adam and Eve;
Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher?—

is only adopting a much older one by John Carnegie:—

Johnnie Carnegie lais heer,
Descendit of Adam and Eve;
Gif ony can gang hicher,
I’se willing gie him leve.

Touching this epitaph of Prior’s, we give what is said in a review on
th
“Familiar Words” by J. Hain Friswell, in the Athenaeum, for January 28 ,
1865: —
“We will observe, too, that Mr. Friswell does wrong to Prior in seriously
calling the following lines ‘Prior’s Epitaph on Himself’:—

“ ‘Here lies what once was Matthew Prior,
The son of Adam and of Eve;
Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?’