English was this:--'The man was too poor to have any other than a _common grave_, so you must not read all the Service; and his friends are too poor to give a hat-band, so you must not wear a hood and stole.' My friend did not of course comply with the intimation." Illustration: Grave-Stones "Well, Mr. Vicar, I hope we may see the improvements you have suggested carried out, and then such an abuse as that will not recur. Much indeed has already been done in this direction, and for this we must be thankful." "Yes, and side by side with that, I rejoice to see an increasing improvement in the character of our tombstones and epitaphs." "Ah, sir, there was need enough, I am sure, for that. How shocking are many of the inscriptions we find on even modern tombstones! To 'lie like an epitaph' has long been a proverb, and I fear a just one. What a host of false witnesses we have even here around us in this burial-ground! There lies John Wilk, who was--I suppose--as free from care and sickness to his dying hour as any man that ever lived; yet his grave-stone tells the old story:-- 'Afflictions sore long time I bore, Physicians was in vain.' And beyond his stands the stone of that old scold Margery Torbeck, who, you know, sir, was the terror of the whole village; and of her we are told:-- 'A tender wife, a mother dear, A faithful friend, lies buried here.' I often think, Mr. Ambrose, when walking through a churchyard, if people were only half as good when living, as when dead they are said to have been, what a happy world this would be; so full of 'the best of husbands,' 'the most devoted of wives,' 'the most dutiful of sons,' and 'the most amiable of daughters.' One is often reminded of the little child's inquiry--'Mamma, where are all the _wicked_ people buried?' But did you ever notice that vain and foolish inscription under the north wall to the 'perpetual' memory of 'Isaac Donman, Esq.'? Poor man! I wonder whether his friends thought the 'Esq.' would _perpetuate_ his memory. I wish it could be obliterated." "I have told John Daniels to plant some ivy at the base of the stone, and I hope the words will be hidden by it before the summer is over. I find this the most convenient mode of concealing objectionable epitaphs. But is it not an instance of strange perversity, that where all earthly distinctions are swept away, and men of all degrees are brought to one common level, people will delight to inscribe these boastful and exaggerated praises of the departed, and so often claim for them virtues which in reality they never possessed? What can be more out of place here than pride? As regards the frail body on which is often bestowed so much vain eulogy, what truer words are there than these?-- 'How loved, how valued once, avails thee not; To whom related, or by whom begot: A heap of dust alone remains of thee, 'Tis all thou art, 'tis all the proud shall be.'