The following is a _real_ epitaph. It was written by Dr. Greenwood on his wife, who died in childbed, and it is in all probability still to be seen, where it was originally set up, in Solyhull churchyard, Warwickshire. The most amusing point in it is, that the author seriously intended the lines to rhyme. There is wonderful merit in the couplet where he celebrates her courage and magnanimity in preferring him to a lord or judge: "Which heroic action, join'd to all the rest, Made her to be esteem'd the Phoenix of her sex!" "Go, cruel Death, thou hast cut down The fairest Greenwood in all this kingdom! Her virtues and her good qualities were such That surely she deserved a lord or judge: But her piety and great humility Made her prefer me, a Doctor in Divinity; Which heroic action, join'd to all the rest, Made her to be esteem'd the Phoenix of her sex: And like that bird a young she did create, To comfort those her loss had made disconsolate. My grief for her was so sore That I can only utter two lines more. For this and all other good woman's sake, Never let blisters be applied to a lying-in woman's back." The advice contained in the last couplet is sound. F. D. Pershore. Your correspondent ERICA gives us some quotations and epitaphs, in which the metaphor of an Inn is applied both to life and death. I find the former of these ideas embodied in the following distich, copied from a tombstone at Llangollen in North Wales, a village much frequented not only by tourists, but by holiday-makers from all the surrounding districts; for whose especial benefit I conceive the epitaph to have been written: "Our life is but a summer's day, Some only breakfast, and away; Others to dinner stay, and are full fed; The oldest man but sups, and goes to bed. Large his account, who lingers out the day: Who goes the soonest, has the least to pay." GEORGE S. MASTERS. Welsh Hampton, Salop. "_The bathos can no further go_" (Vol. vii., p. 5.).-- Inscription copied, Nov. 21, 1833, from a tombstone to a fisherman in Bathford churchyard. "He drags no more, his nets reclin'd, And all his tackle left behind, His anchors cast within the veil, No storms tempestious him assail. In peace he rest--_an_ Jesus plain Reader _I_ here lies--an honest man, A husband--father--friend--compeer-- To all--who knew him--truely dear. Search the Great Globe!--How few, alas! Are worthy now to--take his place." B. H. 1805." Some rural wag had substituted with his pencil {288} three words for the last three, which certainly rhymed better with alas! E. D. Allow me to send you one of much merit, founded upon the same metaphor as those inserted at the page above quoted: