was buried in Scotland, and at his funeral the populace raised a riot, almost tore his body from the coffin, and threw dead dogs into the grave along with it. Dr. Arbuthnot wrote his epitaph, and here it is :

Here continueth to rot

The body of Francis Chartres:
Who, with an inflexible constancy,
and

Inimitable uniformity of life,
Persisted,

In spite of age and infirmities,
In the practice of every human vice,
Excepting prodigality and hypocrisy:
His insatiable avarice exempted him
from the first,

His matchless impudence from the
second.

Nor was he more singular
In the undeviating pravity of his

manners,

Than successful

In accumulating wealth:
For without trade or profession,
Without trust of public money,
And without bribe worthy service,
He acquired, or more properly created,
A Ministerial Estate:

He was the only person of his time
Who could cheat without the mask of

honesty,

Retain his primeval meanness

When possessed of ten thousand a year:
And having daily deserved the gibbet for
what he did,

Was at last condemned for what he
could not do.

Oh! indignant reader!

Think not his life useless to mankind!
Providence connived at his execrable designs,

To give to after ages

A conspicuous proof and example

If one does intend to make a verbal assault upon any man, it is well to do so in words which will sting and cut; and assuredly Arbuthnot has succeeded in his laudable intention. The character is justly drawn; and with the change of a very few words, it might correctly be inscribed on the monument of at least one Scotch and one English peer, who have died within the last half-century.

There are one or two extreme cases in which it is in good taste, and the effect not without sublimity, to leave a monument with no inscription at all. Of course this can only be when the monument is that of a very great and illustrious man. The pillar erected by Bernadotte at Frederickshall, in memory of Charles the Twelfth, bears not a word; and I believe most people who visit the spot feel that Bernadotte judged well. The rude mass of masonry, standing in the solitary waste, that marks where Howard the philanthropist sleeps, is likewise nameless. And when John Kyrle died in 1724, he was buried in the chancel of the church of Ross in Herefordshire, 'without so much as an inscription.' But the Man of Ross had his best monument in the lifted head and beaming eye of those he left behind him at the mention of his name. He never knew, of course, that the bitter little satirist of Twickenham would melt into unwonted tenderness in telling of all he did, and apologize nobly for his nameless grave:

And what! no monument, inscription, stone?
His race, his form, his name almost, unknown?

Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name:
Go, search it there, where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor make all the history:
Enough, that virtue filled the space between,
Proved, by the ends of being, to have been !*

The two fine epitaphs written by Ben Jonson are well known. One is on the Countess of Pembroke:

Underneath this marble hearse,
Lies the subject of all verse:
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Learned and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

And the other is the epitaph of a certain unknown Elizabeth:

Wouldst thou hear what man can say

In a little? —reader, stay.

Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbour give,
To more virtue than doth live.

If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault:

One name was Elizabeth,

The other let it sleep with death:

Fitter, where it died, to tell,

Than that it lived at all. Farewell!

Most people have heard of the brief epitaph inscribed on a tombstone in the floor of Hereford Cathedral, which inspired one of the sonnets of Wordsworth. There is no name, no date, but the single word MISERRIMUS. The lines, written by herself, which are inscribed on the gravestone of Mrs. Hemans, in St. Anne's Church at Dublin, are very beautiful, but too well known to need quotation. * Pope's Moral Essays. Epistle III.

And Longfellow, in his charming little poem of Nuremburg, has preserved the characteristic word in the epitaph of Albert Dürer:

Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;
for the artist never dies.

Dead he is not, but departed,

Perhaps some readers may be interested by the following epitaph, written by no less a man than Sir Walter Scott, and inscribed on the stone which covers the grave of a humble heroine whose name his genius has made known over the world. The grave is in the churchyard of Kirkpatrick-Irongray, a few miles from Dumfries : —

This stone was erected

By the Author of Waverley
To the memory of

Helen Walker

Who died in the year of God 1791.
This humble individual

practised in real life

the virtues

with which fiction has invested
the imaginary character
of

Jeanie Deans.

Refusing the slightest departure
from veracity

even to save the life of a sister,
she neverthless showed her

kindness and fortitude

by rescuing her from the severity of the law;
at the expense of personal exertions
which the time rendered as difficult
as the motive was laudable.

Respect the grave of poverty

when combined with love of truth
and dear affection.

Although, of course, it is treasonable to say so, I con

fess I think this inscription somewhat cumbrous and awkward. The antithesis is not a good one, between the difficulty of Jeanie's 'personal exertions' and the laudableness of the motive which led to them. And there is something not metaphysically correct in the combination described in the closing sentence the combination of poverty, an outward condition, with truthfulness and affection, two inward characteristics. The only parallel phrase which I remember in literature is one which was used by Mr. Stiggins when he was explaining to Sam Weller what was meant by a moral pocket-handkerchief. 'It's them,' were Mr. Stiggins's words, as combines useful instruction with wood-cuts.' Poverty might coexist with, or be associated with, any mental qualities you please, but assuredly it cannot correctly be said to enter into combination with any.

As for odd and ridiculous epitaphs, their number is great, and every one has the chief of them at his fingers' ends. I shall be content to give two or three, which I am quite sure hardly any of my readers ever heard of before. The following, which may be read on a tombstone in a country churchyard in Ayrshire, appears to me to be unequalled for irreverence. And let critics observe the skilful introduction of the dialogue form, giving the inscription a dramatic effect:

Wha is it that's lying here?
Robin Wood, ye needna speer.
Eh Robin, is this you?

Ou aye, but I'm deid noo!

The following epitaph was composed by a village poet and wit, not unknown to me in my youth, for a rival poet, one Syme, who had published a volume of verses On the Times (not the newspaper).