to the current orthography, and
inserted the superfluous consonant for nothing. And my second annotation
shall consist of an inquiry: What is there in corrupt and diseased human
nature which makes persons prefer such execrable rhyme as that quoted
above, and that which I find upon two-thirds of the tombstones here, to
decent English prose, which one would suppose might have been produced
at a much less expenditure of intellectual effort? But since it is an
unquestionable fact that we are thus totally depraved in taste and
feeling, why don't some of our bards, to whom the Muse has not been
propitious in other departments of metrical composition, and who, to be
blunt, are good for nothing else, such as ----, or ----, and many
others you know, come out here among the marble-cutters and open an
_epitaph-shop_? Mournful stanzas might then be procured of every size
and pattern, composed with decent reverence for the rules of grammar,
respect for the feet and limbs of the linear members, and possibly some
regard for consistency in the ideas they might chance occasionally to
express. Genin the hatter, and Cockroach Lyon, each keeps a poet. Why
cannot the marble-cutters procure some of the Heliconian fraternity as
partners? Bards would thus serve the cause of education, benefit future
antiquaries, and earn more hard dimes ten times over than they do in
writing lines for the blank corners of newspapers and the waste spaces
between articles in magazines. I throw this hint out of the window of
the "Atlantic," in the fervent hope that it will be seen, picked up,
and pocketed by some reformer who is now out of business; and I would
earnestly urge such individual to agitate the question with all his
might, and wake up the community to the vital importance, by making use
of "poetic fire" and "inspired frenzy" now going to waste, or some other
instrumentality, of a reformation in epitaphic necrology.

Seriously, modern epitaphs are a burlesque upon religion, a caricature
of all things holy, divine, and beautiful, and an outrage upon the
common sense and culture of the community. A collection of comic
churchyard poetry might be made in this place which would eclipse the
productions of Mr. K.N. Pepper, and cause a greater "army of readers to
explode" than his "Noad to a Whealbarrer" or the "Grek Slaiv" has done.

* * * * *

During our rambles among the tombstones the sun has long since passed
the meridian