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
"1673, April 23rd, was buried M^r. Thomas Sharrow, Cloth-worker, late
Churchwarden of this parish, killed by an accidental fall into a vault,
in London Wall, men Corner, by Paternoster Row, and was supposed had
lain there eleven days and nights before any one could tell where he
was. _Let all that read this take heed of drink._"
At Clophill, Bedfordshire—
DEATH DO NOT KICK AT MEE
FOR CHRIST HATH TAKEN
THY STING AWAY.
1623.
In the same—
HEAR
LIES THE
BODEY OF
THOMAS
DEARMAN T
HAT GAVE 6 _P_
OVND A YEAR
TO TH E LABE
RERS O F CLOPH
ILL 1631.
A watchmaker's epitaph—
Among the curious epitaphs to be seen in the graveyards of England, this
one in the old church-yard of Lidford, Devon, is worthy of insertion—
Here lies, in a horizontal position,
The outside case of
George Rougleigh, watchmaker,
Whose abilities in that line were an honor
To his profession.
Integrity was the mainspring
And prudence the regulator
Of all the actions of his life.
Humane, generous and liberal,
His hand never stopped
Till he had relieved distress;
So nicely were all his actions regulated
That he never went wrong
Except when set a-going
By people
Who did not know his key;
Even then he was easily set aright again.
He had the art of disposing his time so well
That his hours glided away
In one continual round
Of pleasure and delight,
Till an unlucky minute put a period to
his existence.
He departed this life November 14, 1802,
Aged 57;
Wound up
In hopes of being taken in hand
By his Maker,
And of being thoroughly cleaned and repaired
And set a-going
In the world to come.
Grave of Robin Hood—
At Kirklees, in Yorkshire, formerly a Benedictine nunnery, is a
gravestone, near the park, under which it is said Robin Hood lies
buried. Mr. Ralph Thoresby, in his "Ducatus Leodiensis," gives the
following as the epitaph—
Here undernead dis laith stean
Laiz Robert Earl of Huntington,
Nea arcir ver az hie sa geude:
An piple kaud im Robin Heud
Sic utlawz as hi, an iz men,
Wil England never sigh agen.
Obiit 24 kal. Dekembris, 1247.
_Great Tom of Lincoln._
The finest bell in England was the Great Tom of Lincoln, considerably
older than St. Paul's. Its elevation gave it an horizon of fifty miles
in every direction. Its note was like the chord of A upon a full organ.
It fell from its support and was destroyed.
_Mammoth Bell of Buddah._
Klaprath states that in an edifice before the great temple of Buddah, at
Jeddo, is the largest bell in the world. It weighs 1,700,000 pounds,
four times greater than the great bell of Moscow, and fifty-six times
larger than the great bell of Westminister, England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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