Among the few English epitaphs is one not often met:—
Our life is but a winter’s day, Some breakfast and away: Others to dinner stay and are full fed; The oldest man but sups and goes to bed. Large is his debt who lingers out the day; Who goes the soonest has the least to pay.
The subject of those lines had a short reckoning. He went (to pursue the simile) after lunch, dying in his nineteenth year.
The chief monument in the churchyard (ornament it is not) is the triangular pillar to those fantastical old frumps, the Ladies of Llangollen, and their servant. On it you may read of the “Amiable Condescension” of the one, the friendship of the other, and the faithful service of the servant. “It is believed,” continues the epitaph, “they are now enjoying their Eternal Reward.” Let us hope so—but what may be the most appropriate reward in the hereafter for collecting old oak and entertaining society travellers along the Holyhead Road to tea and small-talk, it is not easy to imagine. Let us hope the Bricklayers, Cabinet-makers, Blacksmiths, and Bakers who lie around, with their trades all duly specified on their tombstones, also have _their_ reward for well and truly bricklaying, cabinet-making, blacksmithing, and baking.
That Llangollen is not only geographically but socially in Wales is very evident, in the churchyard, in the names over the shops, and in the talk of the streets. Griffiths, Jones, Williams, Roberts, and Evans have it all their own way, and are repeated over and over again, recalling the humorous story of how the Welsh originally got their names. Llewelyn—was it?—had spent a long time in naming the clans, and at last, growing weary of the work, said: “Let all the rest be called Jones!”
As for the talk, the bridge over the Dee is the place to hear Welsh. That favourite lounging-place becomes on market-days as noisy as a parrot-house with the excited talk of Welshmen black-haired and Welshmen red. Who can shout like a Welshman, and who but a Taffy or Frenchman works himself up into such gesticulating rages on such trivial occasions? Feather-headed pride, conceit, insincerity, treachery, fickle enthusiasms, religiosity, falsehood, and superstition, have always characterised the Welsh in the pages of history; but the modern Welshman is not superstitious, and has no faith in the wild legends of his own land, nor belief in the _diablerie_ that was part of his grandparents’ creed. He regularly attends the services of his hideous Calvinist-Methodist Chapel, and is as completely, religiously and politically, under the thumb of the Boanerges who ministers within as is the Irish peasant beneath the sway of the Romish priest. The Welshman clings fanatically to his nationality and his language, and is saturated with matter-of-fact Radicalism; but although he does not believe in the fairies, is careful not to speak ill of the little people, lest evil come of it; and although so pious, is commonly a shameless and resourceful liar. Untruthfulness has always been a characteristic of Taffy, and judges have quite recently commented upon the prevalence of perjury in Welsh courts of law.