As father Adam first was fool’d, A case that’s still too common, Here lies a man a woman rul’d, The devil rul’d the woman.
How frail is man—how short life’s longest day! Here lies the worthy Potter, turned to clay! Whose forming hand, and whose reforming care, Has left us full of flaws. Vile earthenware!
It was his usual custom in company when he told anything, to ask, d’ye hear? and if any one said no, John would reply, no matter, I’ve said.
Death came to John And whisper’d in his ear, You must die John, D’ye hear?
Quoth John to Death The news is bad. No matter, quoth Death, I’ve said.
Cecil Clay, the counsellor of Chesterfield, caused this whimsical allusion or pun upon his name to be put upon his grave-stone;—Two cyphers of C. C. and underneath, Sum quod fui, “I am what I was.”
Oldys thus translates from Camden an epitaph upon a tippling red-nosed ballad maker, of the time of Shakespeare:—
Dead drunk, here Elderton doth lie: Dead as he is, he still is dry; So of him it may well be said, Here he, but not his thirst, is laid.
Death came to see thy tricks, and cut in twain Thy thread. Why did’st not make it whole again?
Her husband died, and while she tried To live behind, could not, and died.
Come let us rejoice merry boys at his fall, For egad, had he lived he’d a buried us all.
Richard Fuller lies buried here, Do not withhold the crystal tear, For when he liv’d he daily fed Woman and man and child with bread. But now alas he’s turned to dust, As thou and I and all soon must, And lies beneath this turf so green, Where worms do daily feed on him.
Here lies fast asleep, awake me who can, The medley of passion and follies, a Man Who sometimes lov’d licence and sometimes restraint, Too much of the sinner, too little of saint; From quarter to quarter I shifted my tack; Gainst the evils of life a most notable quack; But, alas! I soon found the defects of my skill, And my nostrums in practice proved treacherous still; From life’s certain ills ’twas in vain to seek ease, The remedy oft proved another disease; What in rapture began often ended in sorrow, And the pleasure to-day brought reflection to-morrow; When each action was o’er and its errors were seen, Then I viewed with surprise the strange thing I had been; My body and mind were so oddly contrived, That at each other’s failing both parties conniv’d, Imprudence of mind brought on sickness and pain, The body diseas’d paid the debt back again. Thus coupled together life’s journey they pass’d, Till they wrangled and jangled and parted at last; Thus tired and weary, I’ve finished my course, And glad it is bed time, and things are no worse.