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

An upright stone in the burial ground at Hartwith Chapel, in Nidderdale, Yorkshire, bears the following inscription: —

An examination of Pateley Bridge Church registers proves that Darnbrough was 102 years of age.

An epitaph from Saddleworth, Yorkshire, tells us: —

At Rothwell, near Leeds, an old sexton is buried in the church porch. A monumental inscription runs thus: —

At Darlington, there is a Latin epitaph over the remains of Richard Preston, which has been freely translated as follows: —

The gravestone bears the date of 1765.

Further examples might be included, but we have given sufficient to show the varied and curious epitaphs placed to the memory of parish clerks and sextons.

The trade of printer is rich in technical terms available for the writer of epitaphs, as will be seen in the following examples.

Our first inscription is from St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, placed in remembrance of England’s benefactor, the first English printer: —

The next is in memory of one Edward Jones, ob. 1705-6, æt. 53. He was the “Gazette” Printer of the Savoy, and the following epitaph was appended to an elegy, entitled, “The Mercury Hawkers in Mourning,” and published on the occasion of his death: —

Another is on a noted printer and bookseller in his day, Jacob Tonson, who died in 1735: —

The volume of his life being finished, here is the end of Jacob Tonson. Weep, authors, and break your pens; your Tonson, effaced from the book, is no more; but print the last inscription on this last page of death, for fear that, delivered to the press of the grave, he, the Editor, should want a title. Here lies a bookseller, the leaf of his life being finished, awaiting a new edition, augmented and corrected.

The celebrated Dr. Benjamin Franklin imitated the above, and designed it for himself: —

The body of B. Franklin, Printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be wholly lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more, in a new and more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the Author. He was born Jan. 6, 1706. Died – , 17 – . B.F.

Franklin died on the 17th of April, 1790, aged eighty-four years. After the death of this sturdy patriot and sagacious writer, the following singular sentiment was inscribed to his memory: —

Benjamin 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: —

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 notable epitaph was that of George Faulkner, the alderman and printer, of Dublin, who died in 1775: