Perhaps some readers may be interested by the following epitaph, written by no less a man than Sir Walter Scott, and inscribed on the stone which covers the grave of a humble heroine whose name his genius has made known over the world.  The grave is in the churchyard of Kirkpatrick-Irongray, a few miles from Dumfries:—­

This stone was erected By the Author of Waverley To the memory of Helen Walker Who died in the year of God 1791.  This humble individual practised in real life the virtues with which fiction has invested the imaginary character of Jeanie Deans.  Refusing the slightest departure from veracity even to save the life of a sister, she neverthless showed her kindness and fortitude by rescuing her from the severity of the law; at the expense of personal exertions which the time rendered as difficult as the motive was laudable.  Respect the grave of poverty when combined with love of truth and dear affection.

Although, of course, it is treasonable to say so, I confess I think this inscription somewhat cumbrous and awkward.  The antithesis is not a good one, between the difficulty of Jeanie’s ’personal exertions’ and the laudableness of the motive which led to them.  And there is something not metaphysically correct in the combination described in the closing sentence—­the combination of poverty, an outward condition, with truthfulness and affection, two inward characteristics.  The only parallel phrase which I remember in literature is one which was used by Mr. Stiggins when he was explaining to Sam Weller what was meant by a moral pocket-handkerchief.  ‘It’s them,’ were Mr. Stiggins’s words, ’as combines useful instruction with wood-cuts.’  Poverty might co-exist with, or be associated with, any mental qualities you please, but assuredly it cannot correctly be said to enter into combination with any.

As for odd and ridiculous epitaphs, their number is great, and every one has the chief of them at his fingers’ ends.  I shall be content to give two or three, which I am quite sure hardly any of my readers ever heard of before.  The following, which may be read on a tombstone in a country churchyard in Ayrshire, appears to me to be unequalled for irreverence.  And let critics observe the skilful introduction of the dialogue form, giving the inscription a dramatic effect:—­

    Wha is it that’s lying here?—­
    Robin Wood, ye needna speer. 
    Eh Robin, is this you? 
    Ou aye, but I’m deid noo!

The following epitaph was composed by a village poet and wit, not unknown to me in my youth, for a rival poet, one Syme, who had published a volume of verses On the Times (not the newspaper).

        Beneath this thistle,
        Skin, bone, and gristle,
    In Sexton Goudie’s keepin’ lies,
        Of poet Syme,
        Who fell to rhyme,
    (O bards beware!) a sacrifice.

        Ask not at all,
        Where flew his saul,
    When of the body death bereft her: 
        She, like his rhymes
        Upon the Times,
    Was never worth the speerin’ after!