n subject to the higher jurisdiction of the Diocesan Bishop, and
presumably to the rule of the Ecclesiastical Courts; but, as we have
seen, the authority has been but indifferently employed, and the
inference is that the clergy have in times past been wofully ignorant
or lamentably careless as to their powers and obligations. A more
healthy system now prevails, and we seldom or never find anything
in the way of ornament, emblem, or inscription of an offensive or
ridiculous character placed in any of our burial-grounds, the Burial
Boards being as strict and watchful over the cemeteries as the rectors
and vicars are in the management of the churchyards. Nor has there
been, so far as we have gone, any difficulty in reconciling this
stringency of supervision with the Acts of Parliament which have been
passed in recognition of religious equality at the grave; and it is
not too much to hope that there is in the present day such universal
prevalence of good taste and propriety under the solemnity of death as
to ensure concurrence among all sects and parties in securing decorum
in all things relating to interments. To the incongruities which have
been left to us as legacies from our ancestors we may be indulgent.
They are landmarks of the generations which created them, and records
of times and manners which we would fain believe that we have left
behind in these days of better education and better thought. They are
therefore of value to us as items of history, and, though we would
not repeat many of them, we shall preserve them, not only because we
reverence the graves of our forefathers, but because they are entitled
to our protection as ancient monuments. However uncouth they may be in
design or expression, they must be tolerated for their age. It cannot
be denied that some of them try our patience, in the epitaphs even
more perhaps than in the carvings, and "merely mock whom they were
meant to honour." Two out of a vast number may be selected as painful
evidences of a departed century's tombstone ribaldry. The first, from
a village near Bath, is a deplorable mixture of piety and profanity,
sentiment and vulgarity:

"To the memory of Thomas and Richard Fry, stonemasons, who
were crushed to death, Aug. the 25th, 1776, by the slipdown
of a wall they were in the act of building. Thomas was 19 and
Richard 21 years.

"They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death
were not divided.

"Bl