SUBSET OF EPITAPHS

Evening Star, Issue 20511, 16 June 1930, Page 11

SUBSET OF EPITAPHS

KSS. FOB BRITISH MUSEUM Epitaph hunting is a favourite pastime of antiquarians, and more than one anthology of curious gra\cyard inscriptions has appeared in the past few years. A collection, hitherto unknown became presumably unpublished,came into the possession of the manuscript department of tho British Museum, entitled ‘The Churchyard Visitor.’ A single binding contains a beautifully neat manuscript of four volumes complied by one John Browne, of Greenwich, who finished it >n 1837. He claims to have gone through more than seventy graveyards, and the 1,000 epitaphs in the collection are illustrated, often enough, by views of the churches .and of individual tombs. Tho author himself appends forty moral reflections of Ins own, being moved especially by those inscriptions which ho considers over-flattejing to the dead. Many of the epitaphs are, of course, interesting more for their subject than for their form. For instance., those on the death of an African King’s son From smallpox, the murder of Mr Blight at Rotherhithe, and the murder which took place at Queen Carolines funeral have litt l " noteworthy in their wording. Deaths by violence, however, evidently had as much attraction for Mr-Browne as for the reader of any modern detective story, while the, tombs of prom nent porso-- "-'son. William IV., or tho prophetess Joanna Southcott, for example, encourage him to copy the most banal inscriptions. Certain epitaphs which - ~ar occur in othei ' collections. There is among them that of Joey Grimaldi, the famous clown, concluding with the limes:— The curtain falls, life’s last sad scene is o’er, Poor Joe Grimaldi falls to rise no more. . . . And there is the “epitaph on a violent scold ■”;— f Beneath This stone, a lump of clay Lies Arabella Young, Who on 24th of May Began to hold her tongue. LESS KNOWN “.POEMS.” The majority are, however,' more uncommon. Who has heardiof the sfirimpsellep of Boston in Lincolnshire? A long poem recounts his melancholy emd, and wo learn that— Death took the fish and ate them with some rusks, And stopped poor William’s windpipe with the husks. Of another marine character we are simply informed: — Here lies honest James Paul, Of Limehouse, shipwright, and that’s all. Equally limping:, but more verbose, is tho short requiem on a mam named Huddlostono:— Pray, reader, don’t smile, But reflect on this tombstone you view. That death in a very short time May huddle a stone upon you. Connoisseurs of Cockney rhymes will no doubt rejoice in a specimen, of the vear 1763. From dust to dust return we must, The fairest flowers faded first. Hardly less laconic is an 1802 inscription : Like the dove I searched, No resting place I found; 0, miserable wretch! Alas! It’s under ground. Some of the epitaphs are , decidedly threatening. This, for instance — ■polling unchanged:— Earth is now laid to earth, And dust to dust; Earth pens its mouth, And be filled it must. This is the lot of all, There is none can flee. Earth, is not full, Their’s room yet left for thee. Others are almost gay in their jingle: The Lord saw good, I was lopping off wood, And down fell from the tree, f met with a check, And broke my neck. And so death lopped off me. Yet others are startlingly abrupt, as that of a Miss Flanagan, who died at, the age of thirteen in 1795: The streams of Jordan I have trod, f knew I must to dwell with God. Prose epitaphs tell us of John Alston, the Nottingliam landlord of the “Three Crowns,” who lies “in the joyful expectation of receiving a fourth when he gets up again”; and Richard, Griffin, a Shropshire man, who died in May. 1736, at the age of 116 years, and was. appropriately borne to his grave by “ 116 anfciont people, oldest pallbearer 95.” OFFENBACH MSS. Besides this anthology, the department of manuscripts acquired a large number of documents at tho meeting of the trustees of the museum, among

them the almost complete manuscript score of Offenbach’s, opera, ‘Fantasio,’ that original celebrated letter from Oliver Goldsmith to his brother, and the important and hitherto unknown official papers of the fifth Marquess of Clanricarde, who for some years of the seventeenth century ruled Ireland in the lloyahst cause, . Printed books added to the Museum collection recently include two unique Elizabethan news pamphlets given by Dr llosenbach, and a volume of Papal bulls presented by the ’pe, e;departments have also benefited largely. There is, for example, a fine Chelsea vase with the subject of Meleager, to companion the Atalanta vase already in the museum. This is presented through the national arts collections fund, with the aid of a fund raised by Lord Fisher. There is a curious Javanese pierced leather fan given by Mrs Beaumont, which is not able because it was found in the hands of Princess Siki when she was mur derecl by her Dutch lover. There_ i? also an extremely fine Celtic tore (chieftain’s necklace) of gold with two bracelets to match it, which probably dates from the -Hh century me. Several hundred new works of art have been added to the department of prints and drawings, including a large number of drawmgs by artists of all countries and schools which formerlv occupied part of a gigantic illustrated Bible, in sixty volumes, presented to the diocese of Truro. A Tiepolo, two fine Whistler etchings, and forty etchings bv Mr H. J. Stewart Browne, which the art/st himself has presented, are among the most important of the other additions.