Even this gives us more information about the dead than most of the epitaphs. They are composed, as a rule, with Jonsonian elaborateness, and might as well be set up over Rasselas, as over those they commemorate. On the tomb of President Nelson of his Majesty's Council, in the old York churchyard, a pompous inscription announces: "Reader, if you feel the spirit of that exalted ardor which aspires to the felicity of conscious virtue, animated by those consolations and divine admonitions, perform the task and expect the distinction of the righteous man!" The "_distinction of the righteous_" is a delightful phrase, and sets forth the instinctive belief of the Cavalier in aristocracy in heaven. A Latin inscription was regarded as an appropriate tribute to the learning of the deceased, who, had his ghost walked o' nights, might have needed to brush up his classics to make quite sure of what his survivors were saying about him. In happy contrast to the frigidity of these epitaphs wherein the dead languages bury their dead, is the verse written by his son over the "Hon{ble} Coll. Digges," who died in 1744: "Diggs, ever to extremes untaught to bend Enjoying life, yet mindful of its end In thee the world an happy mingling saw Of sprightly humor and religious awe." How it warms our hearts to find the word _humor_ on a gravestone! It takes the chill out of death itself, and inspires us with the hope that this most lovable of traits may stand as good a chance of immortality as Faith, Hope, or Charity. A brief and business-like epitaph written over Mistress Lucy Berkeley, declares that "She left behind her 5 children viz. 2 Boys and 3 Girls. I shall not pretend to give her full character; it would take too much room for a Grave-stone. Shall only say she never neglected her duty to her Creator in publick or private. She was charitable to the poor, a kind Mistress, Indulgent Mother, and Obedient Wife." For a parallel to this matron who neglected no duty, "publick or private," we must seek the tomb of a maiden. On the crumbling stone the tribute still survives, and tells that "In a Well grounded Certainty of an Immortal Resurrection Here lyes the Remains of Elizabeth the Daughter of John and Catharine Washington She was a Maiden Virtuous without Reservedness Wise without Affectation Beautiful without Knowing it She left this life on the Fifth day of Feb{r} in the Year MDCCXXXVI in the Twentieth Year of her age."