hyard, where I haply lighted upon one of the gems of my
collection, the headstone sculpture of "The Good Samaritan."

[Illustration: FIG. 76. WALTHAMSTOW.]

[Illustration: FIG. 77. BROXBOURNE.]

FIG. 78.--AT STAPLEFORD TAWNEY.

"To Richard Wright, died 3d March 1781,
aged 76 years."

I have, however, an earlier study of the same subject from the
churchyard at Shorne Village, near Gravesend, which, is here given
for comparison, and I have seen two others at Cranbrook. They all have
some features alike, but there are differences in the treatment of
details in each case.

FIG. 79.--AT SHORNE.

"To Mary Layton, died Jan. 12, 1760; Joseph
Layton, died May 21, 1757; and Will.
Holmes, died Aug. 26, 1752."

The stone at Shorne being close to the church door is well known to
the villagers, by whom it is regarded as a curiosity. The schoolmaster
was good enough to give me a photograph from which my sketch is
made. But such rarities are seldom esteemed by, or even known to, the
inhabitants of a place, and are passed by without heed by the constant
congregation of the church. At Stapleford Tawney, just named, a
native, the first I had seen for a mile or two, stopped at the
unwonted sight of a stranger sketching in the churchyard, and I
consulted him as to application of the parable of the Good Samaritan
in the case under notice. His reply was that, though he had lived
there "man and boy for fifty year," he had "never see'd the
thing afore." He condescended, however, to take an interest in my
explanations, and seemed to realize that it was worth while to seek
for objects of interest even in a churchyard. This was decidedly
better than the behaviour on another occasion of two rustics at
Southfleet. They had passed my friend jotting down an epitaph, and the
turn of a corner revealed me sketching a tombstone, when one to the
other exclaimed, "Land sikes, Bill, if 'ere ain't another on em!"

[Illustration: FIG. 78. STAPLEFORD TAWNEY.]

[Illustration: FIG. 79. SHORNE.]

CHAPTER VII.

EARLIER GRAVESTONES.

Although memorials of the dead in one shape or another have apparently
existed in all eras of ethnological history, it would seem that the
upright gravestone of our burial-grounds has had a comparatively brief
existence of but a few hundred years. This, however, is merely an
inference based on present evidences, and it may be erroneous. But
they cannot have existed in the precincts