lateral a position, and the vampire wings are clumsy in the extreme.  I have collected varieties of the skull and crossbone character in many places, and seen the eccentricities of many masons in the way of wings, but have met with very few so far astray as these.  While I am engaged in transferring the specimen to my book, our epitaph hunter has been round and discovered a treasure.  I shall not trouble the reader with him henceforth, but I may note just this one of his successes as a sample of the rewards which attend his part in the pilgrimage.  He has found a stone thus inscribed: 

  “Here lyeth the body of Mary, the wife of
      John Smith:  she died March 17th, 1755,
      aged 58 years.

          “Here lyeth Mary, never was contrary
          To me nor her neighbours around her;
          Like Turtle and Dove we lived in love,
          And I left her where I may find her.

  “Also John Smith, husband of the above.”

  (Date sunk underground.)

A short walk through the village and by the Cray River brings us to the church of St. Mary Cray, where I secure a new species, in which Death is doubly symbolized by the not infrequent scythe and possibly also by the pierced heart.  The latter might refer to the bereaved survivor, but, being a-flame, seems to lend itself more feasibly to the idea of the immortal soul.  The trumpet and the opening coffin indicate peradventure the resurrection.

Fig. 66.—­At st. Mary Cray.

“To Thomas Abbott, died May 21, 1773, aged
75 years.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 66.  St. Mary Cray.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 67.  St. Paul’s Cray.]

Only a short distance farther, for the churches are small, we reach St. Paul’s Cray, the burial-ground of which shews that the foregoing allegory was immediately duplicated, apparently by another hand, with just a little variation to redeem the piracy.  The coffin is quite opened and empty, instead of being slightly open and tenanted, which is almost the only difference between the May and the September work.

Fig. 67.—­At st. Paul’s Cray.

“To John Busbey, died 1st Sept’r 1773, aged
70 years.”

Foot’s Cray is a good long step beyond and does not yield much profit, but I select the most novel specimen, which is a combination of ordinary emblems, with little attempt at symmetry, or even arrangement, other than the awkward juxtaposition of the cherubins’ inner wings.

Fig. 68.—­At Foot’s Cray.

“To Elizabeth Wood, died February 8, 1735-6,
aged 58 years.”

The churchyard at North Cray added nothing at all to my collection.  This was the only blank drawn that day, but a beautifully kept ground surrounding a delightful church well repaid the visit.  A call at Old Bexley Church completed the day’s work, and gave me one of the few sketches belonging to the nineteenth century which I have made.