Curious Epitaphs. Various

introduced

       the art of printing into Scotland

       1507

founded this aisle in honour of the King, Queen, and their family, 1513. Died 1532. This tablet is gratefully inscribed by William Chambers, ll.d.

      The next is in memory of one Edward Jones, ob. 1705, æt. 53. He was the “Gazette” Printer of the Savoy, and the following epitaph was appended to an elegy, entitled, “The Mercury Hawkers in Mourning,” and published on the occasion of his death:—

Here lies a Printer, famous in his time, Whose life by lingering sickness did decline. He lived in credit, and in peace he died, And often had the chance of Fortune tried. Whose smiles by various methods did promote Him to the favour of the Senate’s vote; And so became, by National consent, The only Printer of the Parliament. Thus, by degrees, so prosp’rous was his fate, He left his heirs a very good estate.

      It has been truthfully said that the life of Benjamin Franklin is stranger than fiction. He was a self-made man, gaining distinction as a printer, journalist, author, electrician, natural philosopher, statesman, and diplomatist. The “Autobiography and Letters of Benjamin Franklin” has been extensively circulated, and must ever remain a popular book; young men and women cannot fail to peruse its pages without pleasure and profit.

      In collections of epitaphs and books devoted to literary curiosities, a quaint epitaph said to have been written by Franklin frequently finds a place. He was not, however, the original composer of the epitaph, but imitated it for himself. Jacob Tonson, a famous bookseller, died in 1735, and a Latin epitaph was written on him by an Eton scholar. It is printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine, February, 1736, with a diffuse paraphrase in English verse. The following is at all events a conciser version:—

      The volume

       of

       his life being finished

       here is the end of

       Jacob Tonson.

       Weep authors and break your pens;

       Your Tonson effaced from the book,

       is no more,

       but print the last inscription on the title

       page of death,

       for fear that delivered to the press

       of the grave

       the Editor should want a title:

       Here lies a bookseller,

       The leaf of his life being finished,

       Awaiting a new edition,

       Augmented and corrected.

      The following is Franklin’s epitaph for himself:

      The body

       of

       Benjamin Franklin,

       Printer

       (Like the cover of an old book,

       its contents torn out,

       And stript of its lettering and gilding),

       Lies here, food for worms.

       But the work itself shall not be lost,

       For it will, as he believed, appear once more,

       In a new and more elegant edition,

       Revised and corrected

       By

       The Author.

      But it is not at all certain that Franklin was not the earlier writer, for the epitaph was certainly a production of the first years of manhood—probably 1727. There are other epitaphs from which he may have taken the idea; that, on the famous John Cotton at Boston, for instance, in which he is likened to a Bible:—

A living, breathing Bible; tables where Both covenants at large engraven were; Gospel and law in his heart had each its column, His head an index to the sacred volume! His very name a title-page; and, next, His life a commentary on the text. Oh, what a moment of glorious worth, When in a new edition he comes forth! Without errata, we may think ’twill be, In leaves and covers of Eternity.

      There is a similar conceit in the epitaph on John Foster, the Boston printer. Franklin would probably have seen both of these.

      On the 17th April, 1790, at the age of eighty-four years, passed away the sturdy patriot and sagacious writer. His mortal remains rest with those of his wife in the burial-ground of Christ Church, Philadelphia. A plain flat stone covers the grave, bearing the following simple inscription:—

Benjamin	}
AND		Franklin.
Deborah
			1790.

      This is the inscription which he directed, in his will, to be placed on his tomb. We give a picture of the quiet corner where the good man and his worthy wife are buried. English as well as American visitors to the city usually wend their way to the last resting-place of the famous man we delight to honour.