QUAINT EPITAPHS.

113

duction of the same kind which I think is worthy of being saved from oblivion, and so have given it a place here.

To free me from domestic strife

Death call'd at my house, but he spake with my wife.

Susan wife of David Patison lies here.

October 19, 1706.

Stop, reader, and if not in a hurry drop a tear.

During our drive we came upon many quaint and some clever epitaphs. Here is one from a Norfolk churchyard above the average, to a certain John Strange :

In Heaven at last. Oh! happy change,
Who whilst I was on earth was Strange.

And here is another specimen of tombstone versification:

Waking, sleeping, eating, drinking,

Chattering, lying, life went by,

While of dying little thinking,

Down I dropped, and here I lie.

And still another that is a notable exception to the general rule in leaving the many virtues of the underlying dead to the reader's imagination, instead of proclaiming them in fulsome words believed by

none :

She lived respected, and died lamented.

She was--but words are wanting to say what-
Think all a wife should be, and she was that.

Whilst on the matter of epitaphs I may perhaps be allowed to quote still another one, which I do solely on account of its unique combination of memorial inscription and worldly advertisement, for

I

this existed in quite another portion of England, and was copied many years ago from a moss-grown stone in the churchyard of Upton-on-Severn. This then is it :

Here, in hopes of reaching Zion,
Lies the landlord of the Lion :
Resigned unto the Heavenly will,

His son keeps on the business still.

With this extraordinary and suggestive example of churchyard literature of past times, I may well conclude my remarks on epitaphs-and my chapter.

CHAPTER VII.

A Wayside Memorial-Hintlesham-Tombstone Inscriptions-A Hilly Road-Ipswich-A Famous Inn-An interesting Old House-An Old-time Interior-An Ancient Hostel-Rushmere Heath-A Sea of Gorse-Kesgrave, Church-The Burial-place of the Queen of the Gipsies-The Red Lion of Martlesham-A Toy River-Woodbridge -A curious Relic-The Pleasant Deben-Tidal Mills-Seckford Hall-A Home of the Past.

As we were leaving Hadleigh, just on the outskirts of the town we came upon a curious brick tower house with a walled enclosure. Apparently this edifice had originally been intended for the entrance gateway to some grand mansion à la Layer Marney. Whether the mansion was ever built or whether it had been destroyed we could not learn; history is silent as to this structure, and even tradition, generally so ready to take its place, on this occasion is silent too. It is just one of those old-time buildings that look as though they ought to be haunted or have some legend attached to them, and we felt almost aggrieved that we could discover nothing of the kind; but then Hadleigh is not a place which tourists frequent, otherwise perhaps a ready-made history might have been invented to suit the demand for show places, for I have known such an instance to occur. About half a mile out of Hadleigh we observed a stone set in the midst of a field to the left of the

road. As there was a worn pathway that led only to this, we deemed that it was probably of some special interest, so we pulled the horses up and tramped across the field, to discover, if possible, the cause of the stone being erected thus. Upon a nearer approach we found that there were two stones, each bearing an inscription to the memory of Dr. Rowland Taylor, vicar of Hadleigh in the middle of the sixteenth century, who was one of the earliest martyrs of Queen Mary's Protestant persecution. After being imprisoned, and bribed in vain with a bishopric if he would recant his doctrines, he was eventually burnt at the stake on the spot where the stone stands.

Then to side with truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just. Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit till his Lord is crucified,

And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

This worthy Dr. Taylor was made of sterner stuff than a certain contemporary divine, the famous Simon Aleyn, vicar of Bray, who preferred holding his post to having the honour of martyrdom, and conveniently changed his creed four times to suit the changing times, making excuse that there was 'no trace of bigot in his blood ;' to every foe, said he, ‘I offer reconciliation's hand'-much, of course, to his own worldly advantage.

Of the two inscribed stones raised to the memory of Dr. Taylor on this spot where he suffered death, one is modern, but the other is the original stone placed there directly after Queen Elizabeth's acces

A MEMORIAL OF A MARTYR.

117

sion to the throne. This latter memorial, though much battered and weathered with the exposure to the storms of centuries, is still legible, and from the quaint lettering thereon we managed to make out the following brief notice, which I give here, as probably in a few more years it will become undecipherable.

1555

D Tayler in De
Fending that

was good at

This Place lefte
his Blode.

Proceeding on our way we passed through a very pleasant pastoral land. Our road was bounded by shady elms, and on either side of us were spreading meadows dotted with these trees, beneath which the lazy cattle were sheltering themselves from the heat of the summer sun. Had the hedges been away we might have been driving through some vast and noble domain, so park-like did the country appear. A soft, mellow, thoroughly English-looking landscape it was, with a restful, soothing green everywhere; green fields, green hedges, green foliage, and green grass all around, and by way of contrast we had a deep blue sky above, and now and again a peep of a red-roofed or yellow-thatched cottage.

Grass grows everywhere in the habitable world. Why do not poets sometimes sing of its beauty as well as of flowers that so quickly fade? What would the world be without its mantle of grass, green all the year round?-if not so fresh in winter as in spring, still it is green. It gives breadth to the landscape because it is everywhere. If needs must be, we could