for Memoriall of the Dead," and observes:- "An epitaph is but a kind of epigram only applied to the report of the dead person's estate and degree, or of his other good or bad partes, to his commendation or reproach: and is an inscription such as a man may commodiously write or engrave upon a tombe in few verses, pithie, quicke, and sententious, for the passer-by to peruse and judge upon without any long tariaunce: so as if it exceede the measure of an epigram, it is then (if the verse be correspondent) rather an elegy than an epitaph, which errour many of these bastard rimers commit, because they be not learned, nor (as we are wont to say) their catflès masters, for they make long and tedious discourses, and write them in large tables to be hanged up in churches and chauncells over the tombes of great men and others, which be so exceeding long as one must have halfe a daye's leasure to reade one of them, and must be called away before he come halfe to the end, or else be locked into the church by the sexton, as I myself was once served reading an epitaph in a certain cathedrall church of England. They be ignorant of poesie that call such long tales by the name of epitaphes; they might better call them elegies, as I said before, and then ought neither to be engraven nor hanged up in tables. I have seene them, nevertheless, upon many honourable tombes of those late times erected, which doe rather disgrace than honour either the writer or maker."

Weever defines an epitaph to be "a superscription either in verse or prose; or an astrict pithy diagram, written, carved, or engraven, upon the tomb, grave, or sepulchre of the defunct, briefly declaring (and that, sometimes, with a kind of commiseration) the name, the age, the deserts, the dignities, the state, the praises both of body and mind, the good or bad fortunes in life, and the manner and time of the death of the person therein interred."

His monument (put up in 1632, at the cost and charge of John Skillicorn, Esq.) in St. James's, Clerkenwell, fails to accord with his own notions on the subject, and dwells only upon his errors. It is as follows:

Weever, who laboured in a learned strain,

To make men, long since dead, to live again :

1 Funeral Monuments, chap. ii. p. 8. ed. 1631.

And with expense of oil and ink did watch

From the worm's mouth the sleeping corse to snatch,
Hath by his industry begot a way,

Death (who insidiates all things) to betray;
Redeeming freely by his care and cost

Many a sad herse, which time long since gave lost :
And to forgotten dust such spirit did give,

To make in our memories to live;

For wheresoe'er a ruined tomb he found,
His pen has built it new out of the ground;
"Twixt Earth and him this interchange we find,
She hath to him, he been to her like kind;
She was his mother, he, a grateful child,
Made her his theme, in a large work compil'd,
Of funerals, reliques, and brave structures rear'd,
On such as seem'd unto her most endear'd ;
Alternately to him a grave she lent,
O'er which his book remains a monument.
Lancashire gave me breath,

And Cambridge education;

Middlesex gave me death,

And this Church my humation ;

And Christ to me has given a place in Heaven.

Etatis suæ 56, A.D. 1632.

Sir Wm. Dethick, Garter King at Arms, adopted the following definition :-" Inscriptions of writings, or the forms of ensigns, motts, or remembrances, engraved or fixed upon sepulchres, tombes, or monuments, where the bodies of vali ant and most worthy men have been buried." It may not unreasonably be conjectured that epitaphs, in their earlies application, as before noticed, were appropriated to illus trious princes and commanders, and to those who, by distinguished actions, had rendered themselves eminent in great public services, or by the possession and display of extra ordinary virtue or qualities.

Camden traces the origin of epitaphs to the scholars of Linus, the Theban poet, who, he says, "first bewayled theyre master, when he was slayne, in doleful verse, called of him Elinum, and afterwards Epitaphia, for that they were fyrst sung at buryals, and after engraved upon the sepulchres.

They were also called Eulogia and Tituli by the Romans; but by our ancient progenitors in a mere English compound worde, Bypiz Leod, i. e. a buryall song." This burial song in former days was, it would appear, frequently extended to too great a length, hence Plato, as quoted by Cicero,' made a law that an epitaph should be comprised in four verses.

2

"Taste and vanity have been competitors for perpetuating their votaries in the Temple of Fame;" but whatever may have been the origin of epitaphs, it must be admitted that there is much justice in the remark of Dr. Johnson, that "Nature and reason have dictated to every nation, that to preserve good actions from oblivion is both the interest and duty of mankind; and therefore we find no people acquainted with the use of letters, that omitted to grace the tombs of their heroes and wise men with panegyrical inscriptions." And in one of the conversations recorded by Boswell, the great moralist is reported to have said that the writer of an epitaph should not be considered as saying nothing but what is strictly true; but that allowance must be made for some degree of exaggerated praise. "In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon his oath."

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Among all funeral honours," says Camden, "epitaphs have always bene most respected, for in them love was shewed to the deceased, memory was continued to posterity, friends were comforted, and the reader put in mind of humane fraylty."

Le Neve assumed the two objects of erecting monuments to have been, first, to record the virtues or eminent qualifications of the past age, and secondly, the filial piety or friendly gratitude of the present.

In carrying out these objects, however, truth has often been sacrificed, and too frequently deserved have been the censures bestowed on epitaphial inscriptions. Dryden (whose own compositions in this line are abundantly open to the charge he brings against others) describes them as the

avarice of praise in times to come,

Those long inscriptions crowded on the tomb."

1 De Legibus.

3 Hearne's Discourses, vol. i. p. 228.

2 Gough.

4 Preface to Monuments Ang cana

And Pope goes further, and designates them as
"Sepulchral lies on holy walls to grace."
Crabbe nobly censures this too common error:-
Let not love nor grief believe

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That we assent-who neither loved nor grieve-
To all that praise which on the tomb is read,
To all that passion dictates for the dead;
But more indignant we the tomb deride,

Whose bold inscription flattery sells to pride."

How charmingly does Southey' treat this subject, in allusion to a lady whose single life is admirably described as being no blessedness either to herself or to others. Miss Trewbody," says he, "lies buried in the cathedral at Salisbury, where a monument is erected to her memory worthy of remembrance itself, for its appropriate inscription and accompaniments. The epitaph recorded her as a woman eminently pious, virtuous, and charitable, who lived universally respected, and died sincerely lamented by all who had the happiness of knowing her. This inscription was upon a marble shield, supported by two Cupids, who bent their heads over the edge, with marble tears larger than gray peas, and something of the same colour, upon their cheeks. These were the only tears which her death occasioned, and the only Cupids with whom she had any concern."

2

Monuments not unfrequently belie the inscriptions upon them. Camden gives a "conceyted" one, which, he says, is in Pawles, where there is written upon a stone:

3

OBLIVIO

Non hominem aspiciam ultra.

The heraldic bearings of the person buried are, however, affixed to each of the four corners of the stone, to show that he would not be willingly forgotten, and that he had pride of the lineage whence he was descended.

An epitaph may be regarded as a species of writing forming an inscription on a tomb, which is not necessarily confined to any particular form or style, or limited either to

1 Doctor, vol. ii. p. 329.

Hearne's Discourses, vol. i. p. 232. 3 This was in the upper part of the long walk in "Pawles," near the

stairs.

satire, condemnation, or praise. It is universal in its application, and unfettered in its range. Seldom, however, have epitaphs been made but to record noble and generous actions, and to give permanency to the remembrance of virtue and merit. They are commonly the offspring of friendship and benevolence, and are therefore very rarely employed for the purposes of censure or reproach. Dr. Johnson considered an epitaph, in its general acceptation, to be "an inscription engraven on a tomb in honour of the person deceased." It constitutes a means of perpetuating a good, and of holding up an example to be adopted. Brevity is always to be regarded a merit in the composition of an epitaph. There are few, however, who can in this respect admit simply of the inscription of their name; there are few whose genius is immortal. To such only can this most terse of inscriptions apply. The Roman people designated their emperors generally by the addition of the name of the place in which their principal actions had been achieved, as Cæsar Germanicus, Cæsar Dacius Germanicus, Illyricus, &c., and these names were inscribed on pillars erected on the highway, that they might be constantly seen and held in remembrance. Johnson thought Sir Isaac Newton might have for his epitaph " ISAACUS NEWTONUS naturæ legibus investigatis, hic quiescit." At Caius College, Cambridge, we have :

And on a stone in the Ante-Chapel of St. John's College,

1 The body of Dr. Caius, who died in 1573, was found entire and perfect when the chapel, at his college, was rebuilt. His beard was long, and he bore a resemblance to the portrait engraved in my "Medical Portrait Gallery," vol. i,