On the other hand, many very curious notions have arisen in connection with this subject—notions as groundless as they are quaint. I will mention three only, which are illustrated by the two following epitaphs, the first of which is from St. Olave’s, Jewry, and the second from Bermondsey, as quoted by Maitland:— 1. “Under this Tomb, the sacred Ashes hold, The drossie Part of more celestiall Gold; The Body of a Man, a Man of Men, Whose worth to write at large, would loose my Pen. Then do thy worst, Death, glut thyself with Dust, The precious Soul is mounted to the Just. Yet, Reader, when thou read’st, both read and weep, That Men so good, so grave, so wise, do sleep.” 2. “Where once the famous _Elton_ did entrust The Preservation of his sacred Dust, Lyes pious _Whitaker_, both justly twined, Both dead one Grave, both living had one Mind; And by their dissolution have supply’d The hungry Grave, and Fame and Heaven beside. This stone protect their Bones, while Fame enrolls Their deathless Name, and Heaven embrace their Souls.” In the first we are told to weep because so good a man has gone, from the second we are led to believe that the gravestone protects the body of the departed, and both contain the idea that the grave or earth is anxious to receive the mortal remains, and is more comfortable for having done so. First there is the question of the weeping. It is very usual, on gravestones and monuments, to find the order given to the reader to “drop a tear.” And yet how impossible it is to carry it out. Imagine dropping a tear all along a line of graves of people of whom one has never heard, and who died 250 years ago! But happily there are quite as many injunctions to the contrary, and we are as often told not to weep:— “Weep not for me, friends, though death us do sever, I’m going to do nothing for ever and ever.” This epitaph to a poor overworked woman is, perhaps, flippant. Here is a more serious one, which was in the church of St. Martin Outwich:— “Reader, thou may’st forbear to put thine Eyes To charge For Tears, to mourn these Obsequies: Such charitable Drops would best be given To those who late, or never, come to Heaven. But here you would, by weeping on this Dust, Allay his Happiness with thy Mistrust; Whose pious closing of his youthful Years Deserves thy Imitation, not thy Tears.” (_In memory of John Wight_, 1633.) Secondly there is the question of the protecting gravestone. This is also not uncommonly met with. The poet Gray’s well-known “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” contains the following verse:—