ON A YOUNG GENTLEMAN.
Ir ever parent, ever child was dear,
Here, as you stop, you'll drop the tender tear,
Here mourn whom, blest with sense, good nature,
truth,
Death seiz'd, too early seiz'd, in bloom of youth,
Religion guided with her brightest rays,
And Virtue guarded to the throne of grace.
Hence let a mother's tears instruct the mind,
And weep Memento Mori to mankind.
WINCHCOMBE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
(Go your ways, sin no more against the Lord.)
HERE lies JOSEPH ANTONY MYONET'S Son;
ABIGAIL, his sister, to him is come.
Elemental fire this virgin kill'd,
As she sat on a cock in STANWAY's field.
REBECCA in her dear son's grave doth lie,
And, if it please the Lord, and so will I.
These are not dead, that lie here in the deep,
When the last trumpet sounds it shall wake them
from sleep.
And when I the last am carried forth of the door,
Then Death, do thy worst, thou can'st have no more.
RENNESLEY, HERTS.
HERE lies interred, under this stone,
RICHARD SADLIER, once of this parish one.
On the Monument of
THE EARL OF ARGYLE,
Who was beheaded at EDINBURGH, June 30, 1685. It is asserted that he wrote the following lines the day before his execution: a strong instance of the quietude of his conscience, and the serenity of his mind.
THOU, passenger, that shalt have so much time
To view my grave, and ask what was my crime;
No stain of error, no black vice's brand,
Was that which chas'd me from my native land,
Love to my country twice sentenc'd to die,
Constrain'd my hands forgotten arms to try.
More by friends frauds my fall proceeded hath,
Than foes; tho' now they thrice decreed my death.
On my attempt tho' Providence did frown,
His oppress'd people God at length shall own.
Another hand, by more successful speed,
Shall raise the remnant, bruise the serpent's head,
Tho' my head fall, that is no tragic story,
Since going hence, I enter endless glory.
ON A YOUNG LADY.
HAD cruel death, whose harvest is each hour,
But stopt awhile to view this lovely flower,
In pity he had turn'd his scythe away,
And left her standing till another day;
But ruthless he mow'd on, and she, alas!
Too soon fell with'ring with the common grass.
IN ST. EUSTORGIO, MILAN,
By S. Thomas Aquinas,
Is a Latin inscription on the grave of ST. PETER MARTYR, an inquisitor in LOMBARDY, who, having made himself obnoxious for his great severities, was murdered not far from MILAN. In English it is thus:
THE Voice, the light, the cavalier,
Of Christ, men, and faith Roman,
Is dumb, is out, is lying here,
Butcher'd as e'er was no man.
He died March 1615, aged 29, and is buried in St. Peter's
Westminster, but without any inscription.
He that hath such acuteness, and such wit,
As would ask ten good heads to husband it;
He that can write so well, that no man dare
Refuse it for the best, let him beware:
BEAUMONT is dead, by whose sole death
Wit's a disease consumes men in few years.
HERE lieth old BECK, who sold fruit at the cross,
But now she's departed, we shall have a loss;
She was a good wife, and a kind loving mother,
And, all things consider'd, we've scarce such another.
INSCRIPTION IN THE CHANCEL OF LANATH CHURCH.
SACRED
To the Memory of
ELIZABETH,
Wife of WILLIAM JONES, Esquire,
Of Clytha House, in this Parish,
Being too good to continue any longer in this world,
She received, with resignation, her summons from
Its miseries,
To the reward of a glorious Immortality,
On the 14th day of January 1787,
In the 58th year of her age.
This marble was erected,
And this inscription written
By her most afflicted and most grateful
Husband,
As a feeble effort to do some justice
To the memory of the best of wives,
And faintly to express that sense of her goodness
So indelibly engraven
Dear honour'd shade! if angels ere bestow
A thought on what is acted here below;
With pitying eye this weak attempt survey,
The last sad tribute which thy friend can pay.
Thou best of women! once my greatest pride,
Dearer to me than all the world beside;
If various knowledge ever claim'd regard,
If meek-ey'd patience ever met reward,
If e'er thy milder virtues were approv'd,
If spotless honour ever was belov'd,
If mortals may departed worth revere,
Still let thy husband shed the silent tear:
Still let him press thy image to his.heart,
From which it never, never shall depart.
Yet, yet awhile, and then 'twill be my lot
To join thy dust in yon sequester'd spot.
Mean time, as flowers spontaneous round it bloom,
May white-rob'd Innocence bedeck thy tomb!
May solemn requiems float upon the air,
For ever sweet to listening sorrow's ear;
While I, observant of thy virtues, strive
Like thee to suffer, and like thee to live.
An elegant French writer of Epitaphs, and author of the celebrated one on Henry III. who was killed by a Monk, left these lines only for his own tomb, desiring his scholars to strew garlands of flowers upon his grave.
I liv'd, I dy'd, the common lot of all.
Light o'er my bones the flow'ry herbage rest,
And no officious lines their peace molest.
WHY look ye, d'ye see, now who lies here,
Sure, and sure, the body of JOHN TRAGERE.
Who ne'er in all his life-time thought fit,
To marry his daughter to NICHOLAS KIRKIT.
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