,
Physicians were in vain:
My children dear and wife, whose care
Assuaged my every pain,
Are left behind to mourn my fate:
Then Christians let them find
That pity which their case excites
And prove to them most kind."

But the most startling perversion of the original text I saw in the
churchyard at Saundersfoot, South Wales, where the stone-carver
had evidently had his lesson by dictation, and made many original
mistakes, the most notable of which was in the second line:--

"Affliction sore long time I bore,
_Anitions_ were in vain," etc.

The following from Hyden, Yorkshire, is remarkable:

"William Strutton, of Padrington, buried 18th May, 1734,
aged 97 years, who had by his first wife 28 children, by
his second, 17: was own father to 45, grandfather to 86,
great-grandfather to 23; in all 154 children."

Witty tombstones, even when they are not vulgar, are always in bad
taste. Two well-known instances may suffice--

On Dr. Walker, who wrote a book on English
Particles:

"Here lie Walker's Particles."

On Dr. Fuller:

"Here lies Fuller's Earth."

The same misplaced jocularity must be accountable for an enigmatical
inscription at St. Andrew's, Worcester, on the tomb of a man who died
in 1780, aged 65 years:

"H.L.T.B.O.
R.W.
I.H.O.A.J.R."

This, we are told, should be read as follows:

"Here lyeth the Body of
Richard Weston
In hope of a Joyful Resurrection."

Rhymed epitaphs have a history almost contemporaneous with that of the
old gravestones, having their flourishing period between the middle of
the seventeenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century.
They were little used in England prior to the reign of James the
First, and it is supposed that Mary, Queen of Scots, brought the
custom from France. She is also said to have been an adept at
composing epitaphs, and some attributed to her are extant.

It may be suspected also that other inventors have written a vast
number of the more or less apocryphal elegies which go to make up the
many books of epitaphs which have been published; but this is a point
wide of our subject, and we must be careful in our Rambles that we do
not go astray.

INDEX.

Abbotts, Stapleford, 47. Aberdeen, 89. Aberystwith, 31. Absalom's
Pillar, 98. Acts of Parliament, 58, 59. Afghanistan, 62. Agricultural
gravestones, 32, 33, 34. "Amazon," privat