The Wykehamist
in reality whether it be written in English or Latin, verse or prose; Ben Jonson is no more alive than our own Thomas Welstead, qui in caelum pro Oxonio adiit— which came, as the fair American remarked, much cheaper too; between the Hampshire Grenadier, victim to what I myself should have thought a harmless enough tipple, and the cynical but honest murderer whose stone among the worthies in the Abbey unblushingly records his crime, there is indeed little to chose. All alike bear the mark of a genuine sincerity; they are infinitely more vivid and alive than the potted biographies and laudatory texts that adorn the normal tomb; and life, I feel, is beauty, even upon a grave.
I had once a friend, whose dread of the tame and conventional epitaph became a pure obsession. He spent his own holidays in searching for some vigorous phrase whereon to model a memorial to himself, and my evenings in explaining the perplexities of his self-appointed task. For epitaphs in English prose he had a vast distaste, and dwelt with horror on the agonies of millions upon millions of departed souls, for ever remembered, perhaps with scorn, upon the earth, as‘ model fathers,’ or‘ true and faithful wives.’ His objection to Latin epitaphs was less certain. Their meaning he doubted if anyone could interpret, while he was sure that none except Americans enquired. His own memorial he wished to be inscribed in no such foreign jargon. He had therefore decided on an epitaph in verse, and of such he set to work on making a collection. A series discovered in churchyards of the remote Welsh mountains particularly pleased him.‘ Their author,’ he used to say,‘ was a great poet. Should I die of disease, what better than these plain but touching lines?’
‘ Affliction sore, long time I bore; Physicians were in vain; Till God did agree to set me free, And ease me from my pain.’
‘ But if it should turn out otherwise,’ I asked,‘ what then?’ He replied, a little sadly so I thought, that there lay his great dilemma; he could not as yet foresee the nature of his appointed end, and so must continue blindly on his life-long quest. One rhyme he had, however, on which he felt he could rely for all contingencies:
‘ O Reader, whosoe’ er you be, One moment linger here and think, That I am in eternity, And you— are on the brink.’
Alas for the vanity of human wishes! My poor friend was buried at sea.
Published December 21 st, 1925.
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