Curious Epitaphs, Collected from the Graveyards of Great Britain and Ireland.. Andrews William
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Franklin died on the 17th of April, 1790, aged eighty-four years. After the death of this sturdy patriot and sagacious writer, the following singular sentiment was inscribed to his memory: —
Benjamin Franklin, the * of his profession; the type of honesty; the! of all; and although the ☞ of death put a. to his existence, each § of his life is without a ||.
On a plain, flat slab in the burial-ground of Christ-church, Philadelphia, the following simple inscription appears over the remains of the good man and his worthy wife: —
The pun on the supersession of an old edition by a new and revised one, has often been worked out, as in the following example, which is that of the Rev. John Cotton, who died in New England, in 1652: —
A living, breathing Bible; tables where
Both covenants at large engraven were;
Gospel and law in his heart had each its column,
His head an index to the sacred volume!
His very name a title-page; and, next,
His life a commentary on the text.
Oh, what a moment of glorious worth,
When in a new edition he comes forth!
Without errata, we may think ’twill be,
In leaves and covers of Eternity.
A notable epitaph was that of George Faulkner, the alderman and printer, of Dublin, who died in 1775:
Turn, gentle stranger, and this urn revere,
O’er which Hibernia saddens with a tear.
Here sleeps George Faulkner, printer, once so dear
To humorous Swift, and Chesterfield’s gay peer;
So dear to his wronged country and her laws;
So dauntless when imprisoned in her cause;
No alderman e’er graced a weighter board,
No wit e’er joked more freely with a lord.
None could with him in anecdotes confer;
A perfect annal-book, in Elzevir.
Whate’er of glory life’s first sheets presage,
Whate’er the splendour of the title-page,
Leaf after leaf, though learned lore ensues;
Close as thy types and various as thy news;
Yet, George, we see that one lot awaits them all,
Gigantic folios, or octavos small;
One universal finis claims his rank,
And every volume closes in a blank.
In the churchyard of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, is a good specimen of a typographical epitaph, placed in remembrance of a noted printer, who died in the year 1818. It reads as follows:
Our next example is profuse of puns, some of which are rather obscure to younger readers, owing to the disuse of the old wooden press. It is the epitaph of a Scotch printer: —
The next specimen is less satisfactory, because devoid of the hope that should encircle the death of the Christian. It is the epitaph which Baskerville, the celebrated Birmingham printer and type founder, directed to be placed upon a tomb of masonry in the shape of a cone, and erected over his remains: —
It is recorded that “The tomb has long since been overturned, and even the remains of the man himself desecrated and dispersed till the final day of resurrection, when the atheism which in his later years he professed, will receive assuredly so complete and overwhelming a refutation.”
In 1599 died Christopher Barker, one of the most celebrated of the sixteenth century typographers, printer to Queen Elizabeth – to whom, in fact, the present patent, held by Eyre and Spottiswode, can be traced back in unbroken succession.
Here Barker lies, once printer to the Crown,
Whose works of art acquired a vast renown.
Time saw his worth, and spread around his fame,
That future printers might imprint the same.
But when his strength could work the press no more
And his last sheets were folded into store,
Pure faith, with hope (the greatest treasure given),
Opened their gates, and bade him pass to heaven.
We shall bring to a close our examples of typographical epitaphs with the following, copied from the graveyard of St. Michael’s, Coventry, on a worthy printer who was engaged over sixty years as a compositor on the Coventry Mercury: —
EPITAPHS ON SPORTSMEN
The stirring lives of sportsmen have suggested spirited lines for their tombstones, as will be seen from the examples we bring under the notice of our readers.
The first epitaph is from Morville churchyard,