the generous, but perhaps inconsiderate, queen caused Duck to be admitted to holy orders, and preferred to the living of Byfleet, in Surrey, where he became a popular preacher among the

JOE MILLER'S TOMBSTONE, ST. CLEMENT DANES CHURCHYARD, LONDON.

lower classes, chiefly through the novelty of
being the Thresher Parson.' This
This gave Swift
occasion to write the following quibbling
epigram:

The thresher Duck could o'er the queen prevail;
The proverb says,-"No fence against a flail."

66

From threshing corn, he turns to thresh his brains,
For which her Majesty allows him grains;

Though 'tis confest, that those who ever saw

His poems, think 'em all not worth a straw.
Thrice happy Duck! employed in threshing stubble!
Thy toil is lessened, and thy profits double.

'One would suppose the poor thresher to have been beneath Swift's notice, but the provocation was great, and the chastisement, such as it was, merited. For though few men had ever less pretensions to poetical genius than Duck, yet the Court party actually set him up as a rival-—nay, as superior to Pope. And the saddest part of the affair was that Duck, in his utter simplicity and ignorance of what really constituted poetry, was led to fancy himself the greatest poet of the age. Consequently, considering that his genius was neglected, and that he was not rewarded according to his poetical deserts by being made the clergyman of an obscure village, he fell into a state of melancholy, which ended in suicide; affording another to the numerous instances of the very great difficulty of doing good. If the well-meaning queen had elevated Duck to the position of farm-bailiff, he might have led a long and happy life, amongst the scenes and the classes of society in which his youth had passed,

and thus been spared the pangs of disappointed vanity and misdirected ambition."

Says a thoughtful writer, if truth, perspicuity, wit, gravity, and every property pertaining to the ancient or modern epitaph, were ever united in one of terse brevity, it was that made for Burbage, the tragedian, in the days of Shakespeare:

"Exit BURBAGE."

Jerrold, perhaps, with that brevity which is the soul of wit, trumped the above by his anticipatory epitaph on that excellent man and distinguished historian, Charles Knight

:

"Good KNIGHT."

Epitaphs on Sportsmen.

HE stirring lives of sportsmen have suggested

TH

spirited lines for their tombstones, as will be seen from the examples we bring under the notice of our readers.

The first epitaph is from Morville churchyard, near Bridgnorth, on John Charlton, Esq., who was for many years Master of the Wheatland Foxhounds, and died January 20th, 1843, aged 63 years; regretted by all who knew him :

Of this world's pleasure I have had my share,
A few of the sorrows I was doomed to bear.
How oft have I enjoy'd the noble chase
Of hounds and foxes striving for the race!
But hark! the knell of death calls me away,
So sportsmen, all, farewell! I must obey.

Our next is written on Mills, the huntsman :--

Here lies JOHN MILLS, who over the hills

Pursued the hounds with hallo:

The leap though high, from earth to sky,
The huntsman we must follow.

A short, rough, but pregnant epitaph is placed over the remains of Robert Hackett, a keeper of

Hardwick Park, who died in 1703, and was buried

in Ault Hucknall churchyard :

Long had he chased

The Red and Fallow Deer,
But Death's cold dart

At last has fix'd him here.

George Dixon, a noted fox-hunter, is buried in Luton churchyard, and on his gravestone the following appears :

Stop, passenger, and thy attention fix on,

That true-born, honest, fox-hunter, GEORGE Dixon,

Who, after eighty years' unwearied chase,

Now rests his bones within this hallow'd place.

A gentle tribute of applause bestow,

And give him, as you pass, one tally-ho!
Early to cover, brisk he rode each morn,
In hopes the brush his temple might adorn ;
The view is now no more, the chase is past,
And to an earth, poor George is run at last.

On a stone in the graveyard of Mottram the following inscription appears :

In the memory of GEORGE Newton,
of Stalybridge,

who died August 7th, 1871,

in the 94th year of his age.

Though he liv'd long, the old man has gone at last,
No more he'll hear the huntsman's stirring blast;
Though fleet as Reynard in his youthful prime,
At last he's yielded to the hand of Time.