PREFACE.

I am a Gravestone Rambler, and I beg you to bear me company.

This Book is not a Sermon.  It is a lure to decoy other Ramblers, and the bait is something to ramble for.  It also provides a fresh object for study.

Old-lore is an evergreen tree with many branches.  This is a young shoot.  It is part of an old theme, but is itself new.

Books about Tombs there are many, and volumes of Epitaphs by the hundred.  But of the Common Gravestones—­the quaint and curious, often grotesque, headstones of the churchyard—­there is no record.

These gravestones belong to the past, and are hastening to decay.  In one or two centuries none will survive unless they be in Museums.  To preserve the counterfeit presentment of some which remain seems a duty.

Many may share the quest, but no one has yet come out to start.  Let your servant shew the way.

I begin my book as I began my Rambles, and pursue as I have pursued.

William Thomas Vincent.

[Illustration:  Fig. 1.  Newhaven.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 2.  Newhaven.]

IN SEARCH OF

GRAVESTONES

Old and curious.

CHAPTER I.

Old gravestones.

I was sauntering about the churchyard at Newhaven in Sussex, reading the inscriptions on the tombs, when my eyes fell upon a headstone somewhat elaborately carved.  Although aged, it was in good preservation, and without much trouble I succeeded in deciphering all the details and sketching the subject in my note-book.  It is represented in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1—­At Newhaven, Sussex.

The inscription below the design reads as follows: 

  “Here lyeth the remains of Andrew Brown,
      who departed this life the 14th day of
      January 1768, aged 66 years.  Also of
      Mary his wife, who departed this life the
      3d day of July 1802, aged 88 years.”

This was the first time I had been struck by an allegorical gravestone of a pronounced character.

The subject scarcely needs to be interpreted, being obviously intended to illustrate the well-known passage in the Burial Service:  “For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised ... then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in Victory.  O death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?” The reference in another ritual to the Lord of Life trampling the King of Terrors beneath his feet seems also to be indicated, and it will be noticed that the artist has employed a rather emphatic smile to pourtray triumph.

It was but natural to suppose that this work was the production of some local genius of the period, and I searched for other evidences of his skill.  Not far away I found the next design, very nearly of the same date.