Various

“ This tomb doth here enclose the world's most beauteous Rose.
Here lies John Quebecca
precentor to My Lord the King.
When he is admitted to the choir of angels whose society he will embellish and where he will distinguish himself by his powers of song—God shall say to the angels—
Cease ye calves! and let me hear
John Quebecca, the precentor of
My Lord the King.
St. Botolph's.
A traveller lies here at rest
Who life's rough ocean tossed on. ”

“ Peacable and quiet, a friend to his father and mother, respected by all who knew him—gone to the world where horses don't kick, where sorrow and weeping are no more.
Here lies my twins as dead as nits
One died of fever the other of fits.
Some have children others none,
Here lies the mother of twenty one. ”

“ A woman who would always have her will.
She snubbed her husband but she made good bread
Yet on the whole he's rather glad she's dead.
She whipped her children and she drank her gin,
Whipped virtue out and whipped the devil in.
May all such women go to some great fold
Where they through all eternity may scold. ”

“ INTRODUCTION. This collection of epitaphs was started in a very modest fashion about thirty-five years ago, when the compiler found great pleasure in searching all the graveyards near her Vermont home for quaint inscriptions upon old tombstones. It was neither a morbid curiosity nor a spirit of melancholy that attracted her to the weather-beaten slabs of marble and slate, but rather a fondness for studying human eccentricity as revealed in whimsical epitaphs. ”

“ Copied from a tomb-stone in Wales by old Sexton Brown, the once famous sexton of Grace Church, N. Y.
Here lies in a horizontal position the outside case of George Rutlege watch-maker, whose abilities in that line were an honor to his profession.
Integrity was the main-spring of all the actions of his life. Humane, honest and industrious his hands never stopped until they had relieved distress.
He had the art of disposing of his time in such a way that he never went wrong except when set agoing by persons who did not know his key, and even then was easily set right again. ”

“ With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked"
and these have given many hours of pleasure to one who finds in such sombre elegies of the dead most interesting reflections of the living.
As the only purpose of carrying on such odd researches was to satisfy a fondness for freakish ingenuity, much less interest was found in the thousands of amusing epitaphs that are penned by writers for comic papers or by wags in general. Fictitious inscriptions lack the charm of authenticity, which in the case of epitaphs is decidedly more desirable than imagination. ”

“ In a few instances the names have been changed, where it was thought that verbatim copies of the epitaphs might prove invidious to the relatives or friends of the dead. It is hoped that the division into localities will prove a convenience to a majority of readers, who naturally will not care to read such a book through at one sitting, but rather to pick it up now and then when in the mood for such light entertainment as it can afford. ”

“ If life were merchandize that men could buy
The rich would live and none but poor would die.
Of pneumonia supervening consumption complicated with other diseases, the main symptom of which was insanity. ”

“ The compiler trusts that it is not an act of unreasonable presumption to publish a book of epitaphs when so many already exist. In fact it was partly because of the numerous requests for an examination of her collection that the plan of publishing it was adopted. ”

“ Here lies a man never beat by a plan,
Straight was his aim and sure of his game,
Never was a lover but invented a revolver.
Jaffrey.
A free negro, Amos Fortune, settled in Jaffrey more than one hundred years ago, though warned off as a possible pauper, and left one quaint bit of history—his estate, to the town. Part of it bought the communion service still in use (1895.) On the gravestone of his wife is this inscription:—
Sacred to the memory of Violate, by purchase the Slave of Amos Fortune, by marriage his wife, by fidelity his companion and solace, and by his death his widow. ”

“ QUAINT EPITAPHS. MAINE. Winslow.
Here lies the body of Richard Thomas, an Englishman by birth, a Whig of '76—a Cooper by trade, now food for worms. Like an old rum puncheon whose staves are all marked and numbered he will be raised and put together again by his Maker.
Here lies the body of John Mound
Lost at sea and never found.
Here lies one Wood enclosed in wood,
One Wood within another.
The outer wood is very good,
We cannot praise the other.
Portland. ”

“ The spelling has necessarily been changed at times from the antiquated and almost hieroglyphic forms which would defy the most careful typography; but in general the orthography and punctuation are copied verbatim from the originals. ”