And what! no monument, inscription, stone? His race, his form, his name almost, unknown? Who builds a church to God, and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name: Go, search it there, where to be born and die, Of rich and poor make all the history: Enough, that virtue filled the space between, Proved, by the ends of being, to have been! [Footnote: Pope's Moral Essays. Epistle III.] The two fine epitaphs written by Ben Jonson are well known. One is on the Countess of Pembroke:-- Underneath this marble hearse, Lies the subject of all verse: Sidney's sister, Pembroke's'mother; Death! ere thou hast slain another, Learned and fair, and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee. And the other is the epitaph of a certain unknown Elizabeth:-- Wouldst thou hear what man can say In a little?--reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die; Which in life did harbour give, To more virtue than doth live. If at all she had a fault, Leave it buried in this vault: One name was Elizabeth, The other let it sleep with death: Fitter, where it died, to tell, Than that it lived at all. Farewell! Most people have heard of the brief epitaph inscribed on a tombstone in the floor of Hereford Cathedral, which inspired one of the sonnets of Wordsworth. There is no name, no date, but the single word MISERRIMUS. The lines, written by herself, which are inscribed on the gravestone of Mrs. Hemans, in St. Anne's Church at Dublin, are very beautiful, but too well known to need quotation. And Longfellow, in his charming little poem of Nuremburg, has preserved the characteristic word in the epitaph of Albert Durer:-- Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies; Dead he is not,--but departed,--for the artist never dies. Perhaps some readers may be interested by the following epitaph, written by no less a man than Sir Walter Scott, and inscribed on the stone which covers the grave of a humble heroine whose name his genius has made known over the world. The grave is in the churchyard of Kirkpatrick-Irongray, a few miles from Dumfries:-- This stone was erected By the Author of Waverley To the memory of Helen Walker Who died in the year of God 1791. This humble individual practised in real life the virtues with which fiction has invested the imaginary character of Jeanie Deans. Refusing the slightest departure from veracity even to save the life of a sister, she neverthless showed her kindness and fortitude by rescuing her from the severity of the law; at the expense of personal exertions which the time rendered as difficult as the motive was laudable. Respect the grave of poverty when combined with love of truth and dear affection.