“Reader, with kind regard this grave survey
  Nor heedless pass where tipper’s ashes lay. 
  Honest he was, ingenuous, blunt, and kind;
  And dared do, what few dare do, speak his mind. 
  Philosophy and History well he knew,
  Was versed in PHYSICK and in Surgery too. 
  The best old stingo he both brewed and sold,
  Nor did one knavish act to get his Gold. 
  He played through Life a varied comic part,
  And knew immortal HUDIBRAS by heart. 
  Reader, in real truth, such was the Man,
  Be better, wiser, laugh more if you can.”

That these were all the especial eccentricities of this burial-place disappointed me, but, with my after-knowledge, may say that three such choice specimens from one enclosure is a very liberal allowance.

Suspecting that sculptors of the quality necessary for such high-class work would be unlikely to dwell in a small and unimportant fisher-village such as Newhaven was in the middle of the eighteenth century, I went over to Lewes, the county town being only seven miles by railway.  But I found nothing to shew that Lewes was the seat of so much skill, and I have since failed to discover the source in Brighton or any other adjacent town.  Indeed, it may be said at once that large towns are the most unlikely of all places in which to find peculiar gravestones.  At Lewes, however, I lighted on one novelty somewhat to my purpose, and, although a comparatively simple illustration, it is not without its merits, and I was glad to add it to my small collection.  The mattock and spade are realistic of the grave; the open book proclaims the promise of the heaven beyond.

[Illustration:  Fig. 6.  Plumstead.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 7.  Dartford.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 8.  Dartford.]

FIG. 5.—­AT LEWES.

“To Samuel Earnes, died May 6th, 1757, aged
21 years.”

The coincidence of date would almost warrant a belief that this piece of imagery may have emanated from the same brain and been executed by the same hands as are accountable for the two which we have seen seven miles away, but the workmanship is really not in the least alike, and I have learnt almost to discard in this connection the theory of local idiosyncrasies.  Even when we find, as we do find, similar, and almost identical, designs in neighbouring churchyards, or in the same churchyard, it is safer to conjecture that a meaner sculptor has copied the earlier work than that the first designer would weaken his inventive character by a replication.  The following, which cannot be described as less than a distortion of a worthier model, is to be found in many places, and in such abundance as to suggest a wholesale manufacture.

Fig. 6.—­At Plumstead, Kent.

“To Elizabeth Bennett, died 1781, aged
53 years.”