1899.] on Epitaphs. 31 



I have only time to cite two or three striking French epitaphs. 

 One of these reached me from Ehodes and belongs to the twelfth 

 century : — 



Ci-git tres-haut et tres-puissant Seigneur 



Baudoin de Flandre, Conite de Courtenay. 



J'ai aiine, j'ai peehe, j'ai souffert. 



Ayez pitie' de moi, 6 nion Dieu. 



" Does n't it," said the gifted friend who found and who sent it to 

 me, " resume all the anguish of mankind ? " 



The following was written for himself by the first husband of 

 Madame de Maintenon : — 



Passants, ne faites pas de bruit, 

 De crainte que je ne m'eveille 

 Car voila la premiere nuit 

 Que le pauvre Scarron soinmeille. 



Another of which I am fond is : — 



Seule a raon Aurore 

 Seule a mon eouchant 

 Je suis seule encore ici. 



It may be remembered with the enigmatic ' Miserrimus ' of Wor- 

 cester Cathedral. 



Every one knows the epitaph which Piron, disgusted at his exclu- 

 sion from the Academie Francaise, wrote for his own monument : — 



Ci-git Piron qui ne fut rien 

 Pas menie Acade'rnicien. 



But not so many have met with the incomparably superior epitaph 

 which he suggested for the Marshal de Belleisle when that commander, 

 taking a far too favourable view of his own merits, desired to 

 be buried close to Turenne : — 



Ci-git le glorieux a cote' de la gloire ! 



I must spare five minutes for one or two German epitaphs. I re- 

 member having been particularly struck with one in the military 

 Friedhof at Berlin. Over the entrance of a tomb, which when I saw 

 it forty-five years ago looked appropriately forlorn, were the simple 

 words : — 



Here is extinguished the old line of the House of Arniin Frederwalde. 

 Hier erlischt die alte Linie des Hauses Arniin Frederwalde. 



On the tomb of the great Alexander von Humboldt, they have 

 placed an inscription to the effect that as he had learnt and compre- 

 hended all that is to be seen in our upper air he had descended also 

 into the night to continue his researches : — 



Da er alles umfasst und erkannt was in Licht sich bewegt hier, 

 Stieg er nun auch in die Naeht weiter zu forschen hinab. 



