Curious Epitaphs, Collected from the Graveyards of Great Britain and Ireland. Andrews William

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СКАЧАТЬ 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:—

Benjamin	}	Franklin.
Deborah
	February, 1790.

      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:

      Here lie the remains of L. Gedge, Printer.

       Like a worn-out character, he has returned to the Founder,

       Hoping that he will be re-cast in a better and

       more perfect mould.

      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:—

      Sacred to the memory of

       Adam Williamson,

       Pressman-printer, in Edinburgh,

       Who died Oct. 3, 1832,

       Aged 72 years.

       All my stays are loosed; My cap is thrown off; my head is worn out; My box is broken; My spindle and bar have lost their power; My till is laid aside; Both legs of my crane are turned out of their path; My platen can make no impression; My winter hath no spring; My rounce will neither roll out nor in; Stone, coffin, and carriage have all failed; The hinges of my tympan and frisket are immovable; My long and short ribs are rusted; My cheeks are much worm-eaten and mouldering away: My press is totally down: The volume of my life is finished, Not without many errors; Most of them have arisen from bad composition, and are to be attributed more to the chase than the press; There are also a great number of my own: Misses, scuffs, blotches, blurs, and bad register; But the true and faithful Superintendent has undertaken to correct the whole. When the machine is again set up (incapable of decay), A new and perfect edition of my life will appear, Elegantly bound for duration, and every way fitted for the grand Library of the Great Author.

      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:—

      Stranger

       Beneath this cone, in unconsecrated ground,

       A friend to the liberties of mankind

       Directed his body to be inurned.

       May the example contribute to emancipate thy mind

       from the idle fears of superstition, and the

       wicked arts of priestcraft.

      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:—

      Here

       lies inter’d

       the mortal remains

       of

       John Hulm,

       Printer,

       who, like an old, worn-out type,

       battered by frequent use,

       reposes in the grave.

       But not without a hope that at some future time

       he might be cast in the mould of righteousness,

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