China by the Fung-shuy, or wind and water
doctors, their functions differ little from those
of the witches and wizards who, to this
day, are not without influence in the ruder
districts of our country, and whose
supernatural knowledge of events is firmly
believed in by a considerable portion of the
agricultural population.

AMONG THE TOMBS.

BEING employed professionally in the
churchyard of Bedlington, the other day I
perceived these words written over a gentleman's
grave:

"Poems and epitaphs are but stuff,
Here lies Robert Barras, and that's enough."

And I think it right that so sweeping a
statement, which has so long enjoyed the
advantage of stone, should be at once
contradicted in stereotype. As to poems, indeed,
I have no quarrel with Mr. Robert Barras
upon that matter; but as a stone-cutter
(though journeyman) and a sculptor of tombs
(though itinerant), I think I may be allowed
a word or two upon the second subject.

What opportunities had Mr. Robert Barras,
while upon earth, instead of earth being upon
him, to enable him to speak of epitaphs in
this fashion? Was he a ghoul, and therefore
peculiarly familiar with our churchyard
literature? It is not likely. Had he
travelled all over England and Wales, leaving
no (grave) stone unturned in efforts to obtain
employment, and chiselling enduring virtues
out of nothing, and blank surfaces, as I have
done? I think not. Did he keep a little
book for the express purpose of noting down
any remarkable epitaphs that he might come
across, with the yards where he took them
from in the margin, to prevent mistakes?
It would be a very singular coincidence if
he did. I have such a note-book, at all
events, and here are some of my notes. Many
headstones I have, of course, not been able to
decipher quite rightly; from some of them,
being mutilated, I have been only able to
extract a few words, which have struck me
as being good, or humorous, or singular in
any respect; decay and damp make almost
as remorseless work with the stone as
with the body; and some I have found
inscribed in other languages, or written in to
me unknown characters, and then I have
been obliged to ask and trust to wiser people
for their meaning. In these cases, I may
not be so reliable and trustworthy as I
believe myself to be; but all others, which
I here quote, may be depended on as
genuine.

This is the inscription upon a stone-coffin,
found under the pavement of Chichester
Cathedral, where I was employed as a day-
labourer only:

"Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo,
Domine." (Enter not into judgment with
thy servant, O Lord,) as it was translated to
me by a kind gentleman in the ante-chapel.
The remains were those of an anonymous
bishop; but I dare say, for all the humility
of his epitaph, he was no worse than many a
bishop one could name. Not a word about
the episcopal virtues of the departed prelate!
Not a hint about his short-comings and back-
slidings, such as one gathers from the
tombstone of another I could mention. No titles,
no boasts. Only, Non intres in judicium cum
servo tuo, Domine.

The kind gentleman before mentioned
parenthetically, seeing that I was interested
in these matters, supplied me with the
following lines written by Robert of Gloucester
upon our King Henry the First, who died
through over eating of his favourite fish:

"And when he com hom he willede of an lampreye
to ete,
Ac hys leeches hym oerbede, vor yt was feble mete,
Ac he wolde it noyt beleve, vor he lovede yt well
ynow,
And ete as in better cas, vor thulke lampreye hym
slow,
Vor anon rygt thereafter into anguysse he drow,
And dyed vor thys lampreye, thane hys owe wow."

Which last statement means, I suppose
"through his own royal obstinacy." And the
same gentleman also gave me this distich, of
a different sort, which he had himself seen
over a grave in Prince Edward's Island:

"Here lies the body of poor Charles Lamb,
Killed by a tree that fell slap bang."

Which gives me but an ill opinion of our
colonial epitaph writers. The rhyme does
not seem to me to sound right. In England,,
when we can't rhyme better than that,
we don't often attempt it, but prefer to
express our ideas in blank verse, as in the
following example; upon a rich merchant's
wife in Coventry yard:

"She was What was,
But words are Wanting to say what a One.
What a Wife should be,
She was that."

Wives would be downright ashamed to put
over their husbands' heads such things as I
often see written over wives. Look at this!

"Here lies my wife, poor Molly; let her lie.
She finds repose at last, and so do I."

And here is what a Cornish gentleman finds
it in his heart to inscribe upon his dear
departed:

"My wife is dead, and here she lies,
No man laughs and no man cries,
Where she's gone, or how she fares,
Nobody knows and nobody cares."

The following was clearly not composed
by Mr. Sexton, but by the husband of the
lady who reposes in her immediate
neighbourhood: