62 



the chancellor of the diocese, who at once hastened to Brampton, 

 and actually stood over the mason, one George Rowell, until 

 he had picked out the objectionable lines with a chisel and 

 mallet". That the vicar knew nothing about the epitaph until his 

 attention was called to it may to some appear strange. But the 

 churchyard is a mile and a half from the church, vicarage, and 

 town ; and in later times a tombstone has occasionally been placed 

 there without the knowledge of the vicar. The chancellor, how- 

 ever, I think, must have ordered the stone to be altogether broken 

 up ; for the stone which now surmounts Margaret Richardson's 

 grave does not look as if it had ever borne any other inscription 

 than her present epitaph, which consists of ten lines, orthodox 

 enough to have been composed by the chancellor himself, begin- 

 ning thus : 



Throughout the world's immeasurable space 

 Go, sinful man, and learn thy God to trace ! 



Mr. A. Ormiston, Carlisle diocesan surveyor, writing to me about 

 the original epitaph, says : 



An old friend of mine, Elizabeth Story (nee Burgess), born August 26, 1772, 

 who lived for many years at Irthington, and died at Warwick in 1856, often 

 informed me that she had seen the tombstone, and that it was a common 

 practice amongst young folk to gather together in Brampton churchyard for the 

 purpose of reading the strange epitaph on old Margaret. Her testimony was 

 borne out by another old person whom I knew, Elizabeth Armstrong, who died 

 in 1858, aged seventy-four, and was buried at Lanercost. 



Mrs. Story's version of the epitaph, copied from her dictation by 

 Mr. Ormiston, is identical with that given in the local almanac 

 with the single exception of the word "lie" instead of "rest" in the 

 first line. Mrs. Barton, of the Crescent, Carlisle, whose late 

 husband was a grandson of John and Margaret Richardson, 

 has a version which, besides differing as to several words from that 

 received by Mr. Ormiston from Mrs. Story, omits altogether the 

 two middle lines.* 



* Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson, who in his "Book about Doctors" (p. 203) says that 

 this epitaph was written by Dr. Messenger Monsey, physician to Chelsea 

 Hospital, who died in 1788, aged ninety-five, also omits the two middle lines, 

 and gives the last four thus : 



