Wealth, my lad, was made to wander, Let it wander as it will; Call the jockey, call the pander, Bid them come, and take their fill. When the bonny blade carouses, Should the guardian friend, or mother Tell the woes of wilful waste; Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother, You can hang or drown at last. EPITAPHS AT LICHFIELD H. S. E. MICHAEL JOHNSON VIR impavidus, constans, animosus, periculorum immemor, laborum patientissimus; fiducia christiana fortis, fervidusque; paterfamilias apprime strenuus; bibliopola admodum peritus; mente et libris et negotiis exculta; animo ita firmo, ut, rebus adversis diu conflictatus, nec sibi nec suis defuerit; lingua sic temperata, ut ei nihil quod aures vel pias vel castas læsisset, aut dolor vel voluptas unquam expresserit. Natus Cubleiæ, in agro Derbiensi, anno MDCLVI; obijt MDCCXXXI. Apposita est Sara, conjux, Antiqua FORDORUM gente oriunda; quam domi sedulam, foris paucis notam ; nulli molestam, mentis acumine et judicii subtilitate præcellentem; aliis multum, sibi parum indulgentem: æternitati semper attentam, omne fere virtutis nomen commendavit. Nata Nortoniæ Regis, in agro Varvicensi, anno MDCLXIX; obijt MDCCLIX. Cum NATHANAELE, illorum filio, qui natus MDCCXII. cum vires et animi et corporis multa pollicerentur, anno MDCCXXXVII. vitam brevem pia morte finivit. IN BROMLEY CHURCH HIC conduntur reliquiæ Antiqua JARVISIORUM gente IN WATFORD CHURCH In the vault below are deposited the remains of JANE BELL", wife of JOHN BELL, esq. who, in the fifty-third year of her age, surrounded with many worldly blessings, heard, with fortitude and composure truly great, the horrible malady, which had, for some time, begun to afflict her, pronounced incurable; and for more than three years, endured with patience, and concealed with decency, the daily tortures of gradual death; continued to divide the hours not allotted to devotion, between the cares of her family, and the converse of her friends; " She died in October, 1771. rewarded the attendance of duty, and acknowledged the offices of affection; and, while she endeavoured to alleviate by cheerfulness her husband's sufferings and sorrows, increased them by her gratitude for his care, and her solicitude for his quiet. To the testimony of these virtues, more highly honoured, as more familiarly known, this monument is erected by JOHN BELL. IN STRETHAM CHURCH JUXTA sepulta est HESTERA MARIA, Thomæ Cotton de Combermere, baronetti Cestriensis, filia. Johannis Salusbury, armigeri Flintiensis uxor, Omnibus jucunda, suorum amantissima, Ut domestica inter negotia literis oblectaretur; Literarum inter delicias, rem familiarem sedulo curaret. Multis illi multos annos precantibus IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY OLIVARII GOLDSMITH, Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit: Affectuum potens, at lenis, dominator: Amicorum fides, Lectorum veneratio. Elfiniæ, in Hibernia, natus MDCCXXIX. Londini obijt MDCCLXXIV. • This is the epitaph, that drew from Gibbon, sir J. Reynolds, Sheridan, Joseph Warton, &c. the celebrated Round Robin, composed by Burke, intreating Johnson to write an English epitaph on an English author. His reply was, in the genuine spirit of an old scholar, "he would never consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster abbey with an English inscription." One of his arguments, in favour of a common learned language, was ludicrously cogent: "Consider, sir, how you should feel, were you to find, at Rotterdam, an epitaph, upon Erasmus, in Dutch!" Boswell, iii. He would, however, undoubtedly have written a better epitaph in English, than in Latin. His compositions in that language are not of first rate excellence, either in prose or verse. The epitaph, in Stretham church, on Mr. Thrale, abounds with inaccuracies; and those who are fond of detecting little blunders in great men, may be amply gratified in the perusal of a review of Thrale's epitaph in the Classical Journal, xii. 6. His Greek 281 VOL. 6 |