The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical: A Cabinet for the CuriousStauffer, Frank H.
History
The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical: A Cabinet for the Curious
Stauffer, Frank H.
Literary curiosa
The "Druid's Judgment Seat" stands near the village of Killiney, not far
from Drogheda, near the Martello tower. It was formerly enclosed with a
circle of large stones and a ditch. The former has been destroyed, and
the latter so altered that little of its ancient character remains. The
"Seat" is composed of large, rough granite blocks, and if really of the
period to which tradition credits it, an unusual degree of care must
have been exercised in its preservation. The following are its
measurements: Breadth at the base, eleven feet and a half; depth of the
seat, one foot nine inches; extreme height, seven feet.
_Curious Epitaphs._
Praises on tombs are trifles vainly spent;
A man's good name is his best monument.
From Childwald church-yard, England—
Here lies me and my three daughters,
Brought here by using seidlitz waters;
If we had stuck to Epsom salts,
We wouldn't have been in these here vaults.
From Nettlebed church-yard, Oxfordshire—
Here lies father, and mother, and sister, and I,
We all died within the space of one short year;
They all be buried at Wimble, except I,
And I be buried here.
At Wolstanton—
Mrs. Ann Jennings.
Some have children, some have none:
Here lies the mother of twenty-one.
In Norwich Cathedral—
Here lies the body of honest Tom Page,
Who died in the thirty-third year of his age.
At Torrington church-yard, Devon, England—
She was—but words are wanting to say what:
Think what a woman should be—she was that.
In the church-yard of Pewsey, Wiltshire—
Here lies the body of Lady O'Looney, great-niece of Burke,
commonly called the Sublime. She was bland, passionate and
deeply religious; also she painted in water-colors, and sent
several pictures to the exhibition. She was first cousin to
Lady Jones; and of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Shields (the Irish orator)—
Here lie I at reckon, and my spirit at aise is,
With the tip of my nose, and the ends of my toes,
Turned up 'gainst the roots of the daisies.
In Doncaster church-yard, 1816—
Here lies 2 brothers by misfortin serounded,
One dy'd of his wounds & the other was drownded.
On the monument of John of Doncaster—
What I gave, I have;
What I spent, I had;
What I saved, I lost.
In a New England grave-yard—
Here lies John Auricular,
Who in the ways of the Lord walked perpendicular.
Sternhold Oakes—
Here lies the body of Sternhold Oakes,
Who lived and died like other folks.
On a tombstone in New Jersey—
Reader, pass on! don't waste your time
On bad biography and bitter rhyme;
For what I _am_, this crumbling clay insures,
And what I _was_, is no affair of yours!
In East Hartford, Connecticut—
Hark! she bids all her friends adieu;
An angel calls her to the spheres;
Our eyes the radiant saint pursue
Through liquid telescopes of tears.
In Newington church-yard—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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