-
Articles/Ads
Article AN ESSAY ON EPITAPHS. ← Page 2 of 4 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
An Essay On Epitaphs.
effect as the observation of his life . Those Ep itap hs are therefore the most perfect which set virtue in the strongest lig ht , and are best adapted to exalt the reader ' s ideas and rouse his emulation . To this end it is not always necessary
to recount the actions of a hero or enumerate the writings of a p hilosopher ; to imag ine such informations necessary is to detract from their characters , or to suppose their works mortal or their achievements in clanger of being forgotten . The bare
name of such men- answers every purpose of a long inscription . Had only the name of Sir Isaac Newton been subjoined to the design upon his monument , instead of a long detail of his
discoveries , which no philosopher can want , and which none but a philosopher can understand , those by whose direction it was raised , had clone more honour both to him and to themselves . This indeed is a commendation which it
requires no genius to bestow , ' but which eau never become vulgar or contemptible , if bestowed with judgment , because no siugle age produces many men of merit superior to panegyric . None but the first names can stand unassisted against the
attacks of time , and if men raised to reputation by accident or caprice have nothing but their names engraved on their tombs , there is clanger lest m a few years the inscription require an interpreter .
Thus have their expectations been disappointed who honoured Picus of B'lirandola with this pompous epitaph : Hie situs est Picus Mirandola , ctetera norunt Et Tagus et Gangesforsan et
Anti-, podes . His name , then celebrated in the remotest corners of the earth , is now almost forgotten , and his works , then studied , admired and applauded , are now mouldering in obscurity .
Next in dignity to the bare name is a short character , simple and unadorned , without exaggeration , superlatives , or rhetoric . Such were the inscriptions in l , se among the Romans , in which the victories gained by their emperors were eorauiemoratecl by a single epithet , as ^ assar Germanicus , Caasar Dacicus ,
Germanicus , Illyricus . Such would be this epitaph , Isaacus Newtonus , natural legibus investigatis , hie quiescit . But to far the greatest part of mankind a longer encomium is necessary for the publication of their virtues and the preservation of their memories , and in the comnosition of these it is that art is
principally required , and precepts therefore may be useful . In writing Epitaphs one circumstance is to be considered , which affects no other composition ; the place in which they are now commonly found restrains them to a particular air of solemnity , and debars
them from the admission of all li ghter or gayer ornaments . In this it is that the style' of an Epitaph necessarily differs from that of an elegy . The custom of burying our dead either in or near churches perhaps originally founded on a rational
design of fitting the mind for religious exercises , by laying before it the most affecting j > roofs of the uncertainty of life , makes it proper to exclude from our Epitaphs all such allusions as are contrary to the doctrines for the propagation of
which the churches are erected , and to the end for which those who peruse the monuments must be supposed to come thither . Nothing is therefore more ridiculous than to copy the Roman
inscriptions , which were engraven on stones by the highway and composed by those who generally reflected on mortalit y only to excite in themselves and others a quicker relish of pleasnre and a more luxurious enjoyment of life , and whose
regard for the dead extended no farther than a wish that the earth mi ght be light upon them . All allusions to the heathen mythology are therefore absurd , and all regard for the senseless remains of a dead man
impertinent and superstitious . One of the first distinctions of the primitive Christians was their neglect of bestowing garlands on the dead , in which they are very rationally defended by their apologist in Minutius Felix . "We lavish no flowers nor odours
on the dead , " says he , " because they have no sense of fragrance or of beauty . " We profess to reverence the dead , not for their sake , but for our own . It is therefore always with indignation or contempt that I read the epitaph on Cowley , a man
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
An Essay On Epitaphs.
effect as the observation of his life . Those Ep itap hs are therefore the most perfect which set virtue in the strongest lig ht , and are best adapted to exalt the reader ' s ideas and rouse his emulation . To this end it is not always necessary
to recount the actions of a hero or enumerate the writings of a p hilosopher ; to imag ine such informations necessary is to detract from their characters , or to suppose their works mortal or their achievements in clanger of being forgotten . The bare
name of such men- answers every purpose of a long inscription . Had only the name of Sir Isaac Newton been subjoined to the design upon his monument , instead of a long detail of his
discoveries , which no philosopher can want , and which none but a philosopher can understand , those by whose direction it was raised , had clone more honour both to him and to themselves . This indeed is a commendation which it
requires no genius to bestow , ' but which eau never become vulgar or contemptible , if bestowed with judgment , because no siugle age produces many men of merit superior to panegyric . None but the first names can stand unassisted against the
attacks of time , and if men raised to reputation by accident or caprice have nothing but their names engraved on their tombs , there is clanger lest m a few years the inscription require an interpreter .
Thus have their expectations been disappointed who honoured Picus of B'lirandola with this pompous epitaph : Hie situs est Picus Mirandola , ctetera norunt Et Tagus et Gangesforsan et
Anti-, podes . His name , then celebrated in the remotest corners of the earth , is now almost forgotten , and his works , then studied , admired and applauded , are now mouldering in obscurity .
Next in dignity to the bare name is a short character , simple and unadorned , without exaggeration , superlatives , or rhetoric . Such were the inscriptions in l , se among the Romans , in which the victories gained by their emperors were eorauiemoratecl by a single epithet , as ^ assar Germanicus , Caasar Dacicus ,
Germanicus , Illyricus . Such would be this epitaph , Isaacus Newtonus , natural legibus investigatis , hie quiescit . But to far the greatest part of mankind a longer encomium is necessary for the publication of their virtues and the preservation of their memories , and in the comnosition of these it is that art is
principally required , and precepts therefore may be useful . In writing Epitaphs one circumstance is to be considered , which affects no other composition ; the place in which they are now commonly found restrains them to a particular air of solemnity , and debars
them from the admission of all li ghter or gayer ornaments . In this it is that the style' of an Epitaph necessarily differs from that of an elegy . The custom of burying our dead either in or near churches perhaps originally founded on a rational
design of fitting the mind for religious exercises , by laying before it the most affecting j > roofs of the uncertainty of life , makes it proper to exclude from our Epitaphs all such allusions as are contrary to the doctrines for the propagation of
which the churches are erected , and to the end for which those who peruse the monuments must be supposed to come thither . Nothing is therefore more ridiculous than to copy the Roman
inscriptions , which were engraven on stones by the highway and composed by those who generally reflected on mortalit y only to excite in themselves and others a quicker relish of pleasnre and a more luxurious enjoyment of life , and whose
regard for the dead extended no farther than a wish that the earth mi ght be light upon them . All allusions to the heathen mythology are therefore absurd , and all regard for the senseless remains of a dead man
impertinent and superstitious . One of the first distinctions of the primitive Christians was their neglect of bestowing garlands on the dead , in which they are very rationally defended by their apologist in Minutius Felix . "We lavish no flowers nor odours
on the dead , " says he , " because they have no sense of fragrance or of beauty . " We profess to reverence the dead , not for their sake , but for our own . It is therefore always with indignation or contempt that I read the epitaph on Cowley , a man