the country; some of the inscriptions are given in Bruce’s Roman
Wall, and the seventh volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum edited by Hübner, containing the British inscriptions,
is a valuable repertory for the earlier Roman epitaphs in Britain.
The earliest, of course, are commemorative of soldiers, belonging
to the legions of occupation, but the Roman form was afterwards
adopted for native Britons. Long after the Roman form was
discarded, the Latin language continued to be used, especially for
inscriptions of a more public character, as being from its supposed
permanence the most suitable medium of communication to
distant ages. It is only, in fact, within recent years that Latin
has become unusual, and the more natural practice has been
adopted of writing the epitaphs of distinguished men in the
language of the country in which they lived. While Latin was the
chief if not the sole literary language, it was, as a matter of course,
almost exclusively used for epitaphial inscriptions. The comparatively
few English epitaphs that remain of the 11th and 12th
centuries are all in Latin. They are generally confined to a mere
statement of the name and rank of the deceased following the
words “Hic jacet.” Two noteworthy exceptions to this general
brevity are, however, to be found in most of the collections. One
is the epitaph to Gundrada, daughter of the Conqueror (d. 1085),
which still exists at Lewes, though in an imperfect state, two of
the lines having been lost; another is that to William de Warren,
earl of Surrey (d. 1089), believed to have been inscribed in the
abbey of St Pancras, near Lewes, founded by him. Both are
encomiastic, and describe the character and work of the deceased
with considerable fulness and beauty of expression. They are
written in leonine verse. In the 13th century French began to be
used in writing epitaphs, and most of the inscriptions to celebrated
historical personages between 1200 and 1400 are in that language.
Mention may be made of those to Robert, the 3rd earl of
Oxford (d. 1221), as given in Weever, to Henry III. (d. 1272) at
Westminster Abbey, and to Edward the Black Prince (d. 1376) at
Canterbury. In most of the inscriptions of this period the
deceased addresses the reader in the first person, describes his
rank and position while alive, and, as in the case of the Black
Prince, contrasts it with his wasted and loathsome state in the
grave, and warns the reader to prepare for the same inevitable
change. The epitaph almost invariably closes with a request,
sometimes very urgently worded, for the prayers of the reader
that the soul of the deceased may pass to glory, and an invocation
of blessing, general or specific, upon all who comply. Epitaphs
preserved much of the same character after English began to be
used towards the close of the 14th century. The following, to a
member of the Savile family at Thornhill, is probably even earlier,
though its precise date cannot be fixed:—
| “Bonys emongg stonys lys ful |
| steyl gwylste the sawle wan- |
| deris were that God wylethe”— |
that is, Bones among stones lie full still, whilst the soul wanders whither God willeth. It may be noted here that the majority of the inscriptions, Latin and English, from 1300 to the period of the Reformation, that have been preserved, are upon brasses (see Brasses, Monumental). The very curious epitaph on St Bernard, probably written by a monk of Clairvaux, has the peculiarity of being a dialogue in Latin verse.
It was in the reign of Elizabeth that epitaphs in English began to assume a distinct literary character and value, entitling them to rank with those that had hitherto been composed in Latin. We learn from Nash that at the close of the 16th century it had become a trade to supply epitaphs in English verse. There is one on the dowager countess of Pembroke (d. 1621), remarkable for its successful use of a somewhat daring hyperbole. It was written by William Browne, author of Britannia’s Pastorals:—
| “Underneath this sable hearse |
| Lies the subject of all verse; |
| Sydney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother; |
| Death, ere thou hast slain another |
| Fair and learn’d and good as she, |
| Time will throw his dart at thee. |
| Marble piles let no man raise |
| To her name for after days; |
| Some kind woman, born as she, |
| Reading this, like Niobe, |
| Shall turn marble, and become |
| Both her mourner and her tomb.” |
If there be something of the exaggeration of a conceit in the second stanza, it needs scarcely to be pointed out that epitaphs, like every other form of composition, necessarily reflect the literary characteristics of the age in which they were written. The deprecation of marble as unnecessary suggests one of the finest literary epitaphs in the English language, that by Milton upon Shakespeare.
The epitaphs of Pope are still considered to possess very great literary merit, though they were rated higher by Johnson and critics of his period than they are now.
Dr Johnson, who thought so highly of Pope’s epitaphs, was himself a great authority on both the theory and practice of this species of composition. His essay on epitaphs is one of the few existing monographs on the subject, and his opinion as to the use of Latin had great influence. The manner in which he met the delicately insinuated request of a number of eminent men that English should be employed in the case of Oliver Goldsmith was characteristic, and showed the strength of his conviction on the subject. His arguments in favour of Latin were chiefly drawn from its inherent fitness for epitaphial inscriptions and its classical stability. The first of these has a very considerable force, it being admitted on all hands that few languages are in themselves so suitable for the purpose; the second is outweighed by considerations that had considerable force in Dr Johnson’s time, and have acquired more since. Even to the learned Latin is no longer the language of daily thought and life as it was at the period of the Reformation, and the great body of those who may fairly claim to be called the well-educated classes can only read it with difficulty, if at all. It seems, therefore, little less than absurd, for the sake of a stability which is itself in great part delusive, to write epitaphs in a language unintelligible to the vast majority of those for whose information presumably they are intended. Though a stickler for Latin, Dr Johnson wrote some very beautiful English epitaphs, as, for example, the following on Philips, a musician:—
| “Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove |
| The pangs of guilty power or hapless love; |
| Rest here, distressed by poverty no more, |
| Here find that calm thou gav’st so oft before; |
| Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrine |
| Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!” |
In classifying epitaphs various principles of division may be adopted. Arranged according to nationality they indicate distinctions of race less clearly perhaps than any other form of literature does,—and this obviously because when under the influence of the deepest feeling men think and speak very much in the same way whatever be their country. At the same time the influence of nationality may to some extent be traced in epitaphs. The characteristics of the French style, its grace, clearness, wit and epigrammatic point, are all recognizable in French epitaphs. In the 16th century those of Étienne Pasquier were universally admired. Instances such as “La première au rendez-vous,” inscribed on the grave of a mother, Piron’s epitaph, written for himself after his rejection by the French Academy—
| “Ci-gît Piron, qui ne fut rien, |
| Pas même académicien”— |
and one by a relieved husband, to be seen at Père la Chaise—
| “Ci-gît ma femme. Ah! qu’elle est bien |
| Pour son repos et pour le mien”— |
might be multiplied indefinitely. One can hardly look through a collection of English epitaphs without being struck with the fact that these represent a greater variety of intellectual and emotional states than those of any other nation, ranging through every style of thought from the sublime to the commonplace, every mood of feeling from the most delicate and touching to the coarse and even brutal. Few subordinate illustrations of the complex nature of the English nationality are more striking.
Epitaphs are sometimes classified according to their authorship and sometimes according to their subject, but neither division
