In St. Clement Danes burying ground.
Here lie the remains of
Honest Joe Miller,
Who was a tender husband,
A sincere friend,
A facetious companion,
And an excellent comedian.
He departed this life the 15th day of August, 1738,
Aged 54 years.
If humour, wit, and honesty, could save
The humourous, witty, honest, from the grave,
The grave had not so soon this tenant found,
Whom honesty, wit, and humour crown'd.
Or could esteem and love preserve our breath,
And guard us longer from the stroke of death:
The stroke of death on him had later fell,
Whom all mankind esteem'd and lov'd so well.
In Duloe Church, Cornwall, is an Inscription, in which the name of the female, whose remembrance it records, forms the anagram, Man a dry laurell.
MARIA ARUNDELL.
Man a dry laurell.
Man to the marigold compar'd may be;
Man may be likened to the laurell tree ;
Both feed the eye, both please the optic sense,
Both soon decay, both suddenly fleet hence.
What then infer you from her name, but this:
Man fades away, Man a dry laurell is.
On a WELCHMAN, killed by a fall from his horse.
Here lies interr'd, beneath these stones,
David ap Morgan, ap Shenkin, ap Jones;
Hur was born in Wales, hur travell'd in France,
Hur went to heav'n by a bad mischance.
In Leigh Delamere Church-yard, Wiltshire.
Who lies here ?-Who do'e think?
Why old Clapper Watts, if you'll give him some drink: Give a dead man drink, for why?
Why, when he was alive, he was always dry.
Here lies Thomas Huddlestone.
But reflect, as this tomb-stone you view,
That death, who kill'd him, in a very short while
Will huddle a stone upon you.
ON JOHN TROTT, A BAILIFF.
Here lies John Trott, by trade a bum;
When he dy'd, the devil cry'd,
Come, John, come.
Said to be on a Tomb-stone at Arlington, near Paris.
Two grand-mothers with their two grand-daughters,
Two husbands with their two wives,
Two fathers with their two daughters,
Two mothers with their two sons,
Two maidens with their two mothers,
Two sisters with their two brothers,
Yet but six corps in all lie buried here,
All born legitimate, and from incest clear.
Two widows that were sisters-in-law, had each a son, who married each others mother, and by them had each a daughter.
Suppose one widow's name Mary, and her son's name John, and the other widow's name Sarah, and her son's James, this answers the fourth line.
Then suppose John married Sarah, and had a daughter by her, and James married Mary, and had a daughter also, these marriages answer the first, second, third, fifth, and sixth lines of the epitaph.
Here lies the body of Joe Sewell,
Who to his wife was very cruel ;
And likewise to his brother Tom,
As any man in Christendom;
This is all I'll say of Joe,
There he lies, and let him go.
On JOHN ELWES, Esq. of Matchem, Berks, and Stoke, Suffolk; the Miser.
Here, to man's honour, and to man's disgrace.
Lies a strong picture of the human race,
In Elwes's form; whose spirit, heart, and mind,
Virtue and vice in firmest tints combin'd.
Rough was the rock, but blended deep with ore,
And base the mass that many a diamond bore.
Meanness to grandeur, folly join'd to sense,
Avarice united with benevolence.
Whose lips ne'er broke a truth, nor hands a trust,
Were sometimes warmly kind and always just.
With pow'rs to reach ambition's highest birth,
He sunk a wretch that grovell'd to the earth.
Lost in the lust of adding pelf to pelf,
Poor to the poor, still poorer to himself.
To pleasure's joy he virtue's joy denied,
Want all his fear, and riches all his pride.
A foe to none, to many oft a friend,
Callous to give, but liberal to lend.
Whose wants, that nearly bent to all but stealth,
Ne'er in his country's plunder sought for wealth.
Call'd by her voice, but call'd without expense,
His nobler nature rous'd in her defence.
And in the senate, labouring in her cause,
The strictest guardian of the purest laws
He stood; and each instinctive taint above,
To every bribe preferr'd a people's love.
Yet still, with no stern patriotism fir'd,
Wrapt up in wealth, to wealth again retir'd;
By pen'ry guarded from pride's sickly train,
Living a length of days without a pain ;
And, adding to the million never try'd,
Lov'd, pity'd, scorn'd, and honour'd, Elwes died.
Learn from this proof, that in life's tempting scene,
Man is a compound of the great and mean.
Discordant qualities together ty'd,
Virtues in him with vices are ally'd.
The sport of follies, of crimes the heir,
Each must the mixture of an Elwes share ;
Pondering his faults, his merits not disown,
But in his nature recollect thy own;
And think for life and pardon where to trust,
Were God not mercy, when his creature's dust.
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