Affixed to “The Excursion,” Book Fifth.

A VILLAGE churchyard, lying as it does in the lap of nature, may, indeed, be most favorably contrasted with that of a town of crowded population; and sepulture therein combines many of the best tendencies which belong to the mode practiced by the Ancients with others peculiar to itself. The sensations of pious cheerfulness which attend the celebration of the Sabbath Day in rural places are profitably chastised by the sight of the graves of kindred and friends, gathered together in that general home towards which the thoughtful yet happy spectators themselves are journeying. Hence a parish church in the stillness of the country is a visible centre of a community of the living and the dead; a point to which are habitually referred the nearest concerns of both.

  As, then, both in cities and in villages, the dead are deposited in close connection with our places of worship, with us the composition of an epitaph naturally turns, still more than among the nations of antiquity, upon the most serious and solemn affections of the human mind upon departed worth—upon personal or social sorrow and admiration—upon religion, individual, and social—upon time, and upon eternity. Accordingly it suffices, in ordinary cases, to secure a composition of this kind from censure, that it contains nothing that shall shock or be inconsistent with this spirit. But to entitle an epitaph to praise more than this is necessary. It ought to contain some thought or feeling belonging to the mortal or immortal part of our nature touchingly expressed; and if that be done, however general or even trite the sentiment may be, every man of pure mind will read the words with sensations of pleasure and gratitude. A husband bewails a wife; a parent breathes a sigh of disappointed hope over a lost child; a son utters a sentiment of filial reverence over a departed father or mother; a friend perhaps inscribes an encomium recording the companionable qualities or the solid virtues of the tenant of the grave, whose departure has left a sadness upon his memory. This, and a pious admonition to the living, and a humble expression of Christian confidence in immortality, is the language of a thousand churchyards; and it does not often happen that anything in a greater degree discriminate or appropriate to the dead or to the living is to be found in them….

  The first requisite in an epitaph is that it should speak, in a tone which shall sink into the heart, the general language of humanity as connected with the subject of death—the source from which an epitaph proceeds; of death and of life. To be born and to die are the two points in which all men feel themselves to be in absolute coincidence. This general language may be uttered so strikingly as to entitle an epitaph to high praise: yet it cannot lay claim to the highest unless other excellences be superadded. Passing through all intermediate steps, we will attempt to determine at once what these excellences are, and wherein consists the perfection of this species of composition. It will be found to lie in a due proportion of the common or universal feeling of humanity to sensations excited by a distinct and clear conception conveyed to the reader’s mind of the individual whose death is deplored and whose memory is to be preserved; at least of his character as, after death, it appeared to those who loved him, and lament his loss. The general sympathy ought to be quickened, provoked, and diversified by particular thoughts, actions, images—circumstances of age, occupation, manner of life, prosperity which the deceased had known, or adversity to which he had been subject; and these ought to be bound together and solemnized into one harmony by the general sympathy. The two powers should temper, restrain, and exalt each other. The reader ought to know who and what the man was whom he is called upon to think of with interest. A distinct conception should be given (implicitly where it can, rather than explicitly) of the individual lamented. But the writer of an epitaph is not an anatomist who dissects the internal frame of the mind; he is not even a painter who executes a portrait at leisure and in entire tranquillity: his delineation, we must remember, is performed by the side of the grave; and, what is more, the grave of one whom he loves and admires. What purity and brightness is that virtue clothed in, the image of which must no longer bless our living eyes! The character of a deceased friend or a beloved kinsman is not seen, no—nor ought to be seen, otherwise than as a tree through a tender haze or a luminous mist, that spiritualizes and beautifies it; that takes away indeed, but only to the end that the parts which are not abstracted may appear more dignified and lovely, may impress and affect the more. Shall we say, then, that this is not truth, not a faithful image; and that accordingly the purposes of commemoration cannot be answered? It is truth, and of the highest order! for, though doubtless things are not apparent which did exist, yet, the object being looked at through this medium, parts and proportions are brought into distinct view which before had been only imperfectly or unconsciously seen: it is the truth hallowed by love—the joint offspring of the worth of the dead and the affections of the living! This may easily be brought to the test. Let one whose eyes have been sharpened by personal hostility to discover what was amiss in the character of a good man hear the tidings of his death, and what a change is wrought in a moment! Enmity melts away; and as it disappears, unsightliness, disproportion, and deformity vanish; and through the influence of commiseration a harmony of love and beauty succeeds. Bring such a man to the tombstone on which shall be inscribed an epitaph on his adversary, composed in the spirit which we have recommended. Would he turn from it as from an idle tale? No—the thoughtful look, the sigh, and perhaps the involuntary tear, would testify that it had a sane, a generous, and good meaning; and that on the writer’s mind had remained an impression which was a true abstract of the character of the deceased; that his gifts and graces were remembered in the simplicity in which they ought to be remembered. The composition and quality of the mind of a virtuous man, contemplated by the side of the grave where his body is moldering, ought to appear, and be felt, as something midway between what he was on earth walking about with his living frailties, and what he may be presumed to be as a spirit in heaven.