An epitaph in an old Moravian cemetery reads thus: 

  Remember, friend, as you pass by,
  As you are now, so once was I;
  As I am now thus you must be,
  So be prepared to follow me.

There had been written underneath in pencil, presumably by some wag: 

  To follow you I’m not content
  Till I find out which way you went.

I expected it, but I didn’t expect it quite so soon.—­Life.

  After Life’s scarlet fever
  I sleep well.

  Here lies the body of Sarah Sexton,
  Who never did aught to vex one. 
  (Not like the woman under the next stone.)

As a general thing, the writer of epitaphs is a monumental liar.—­John E. Rosser.

      Maria Brown,
  Wife of Timothy Brown,
      aged 80 years. 
  She lived with her husband fifty years, and died
  in the confident hope of a better life.

Here lies the body of Enoch Holden, who died suddenly and unexpectedly by being kicked to death by a cow.  Well done, good and faithful servant!

A bereaved husband feeling his loss very keenly found it desirable to divert his mind by traveling abroad.  Before his departure, however, he left orders for a tombstone with the inscription: 

  “The light of my life has gone out.”

Travel brought unexpected and speedy relief, and before the time for his return he had taken another wife.  It was then that he remembered the inscription, and thinking it would not be pleasing to his new wife, he wrote to the stone-cutter, asking that he exercise his ingenuity in adapting it to the new conditions.  After his return he took his new wife to see the tombstone and found that the inscription had been made to read: 

  “The light of my life has gone out,
  But I have struck another match.”

    Here lies Bernard Lightfoot,
  Who was accidentally killed in the forty-fifth year
    of his age. 
  This monument was erected by his grateful family.

  I thought it mushroom when I found
    It in the woods, forsaken;
  But since I sleep beneath this mound,
    I must have been mistaken.

On the tombstone of a Mr. Box appears this inscription: 
    Here lies one Box within another. 
  The one of wood was very good,
    We cannot say so much for t’other.

  Nobles and heralds by your leave,
    Here lies what once was Matthew Prior;
  The son of Adam and of Eve;
    Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?

  —­Prior.

  Kind reader! take your choice to cry or laugh;
  Here Harold lies-but where’s his Epitaph? 
  If such you seek, try Westminster, and view
  Ten thousand, just as fit for him as you.

  —­Byron.

I conceive disgust at these impertinent and misbecoming familiarities inscribed upon your ordinary tombstone.—­Charles Lamb.