EPITHALAMIUM EPOCH. 



71 



unfrequently been made the vehicles of pleasantry, 

 or of satire. Numerous examples of these might be 

 given: ex. gr. 



On Mr Burbridge, the tragedian : 



" Exit Burbridge." 

 On Sparges, a miser : 

 " Here lietb father Sparges, 

 Who died to save charges." 



On Mr Edmond Purdon, (by Goldsmith) : 



" Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed, 



Who long was a bookseller's back. ; 

 He led such a damnable life in this world, 



1 don't think he'll ever come back." 



On an Englishman, troubled with ennui : 

 Here lies Sir John Plumpudding, of the Grange, 

 Who hang'd himself one morning, for a change. 



T he quaint humour of doctor Franklin expressed itself 

 in the following lines : 



The body 



of 

 Benjamin Franklin, 



printer, 

 (like the cover of an old book, 



its contents torn out, 

 and stripped of its lettering and gilding,) 



lies here, food for worms ; 



yet the work itself shall not be lost; 



for it will (as he believed) appear once more 



in a new 



and more beautiful edition, 

 corrected and amended 



by 

 the Author. 



Similar to this, but much inferior, is the following 

 on a watchmaker : 



Here lies, in a horizontal position, the outside case of 

 , watchmaker, 



Whose abilities in that line were an honour to his profes- 

 sion : 



Integrity was the main-spring and prudence the regu- 

 lator, of all the actions of his life ; 



Humane, generous, and liberal, his hand never stopt till 

 he bad relieved distress : 



So nicely regulated were his motions, that he never went 

 wrong, 



Except when set a-going by people who did not know his 

 key; 



Even then, he was easily set right again. 

 He departed this lit wound up, 



In hopes of being taken in hand by his Maker, 



And of being thoroughly cleaned, repaired, and seta-going 

 In the world to come.' 



Of satirical epitaphs, those of Burns are very pun- 

 gent. The following on Piron, written by himself, 

 in a spirit of revenge, against the French academy, 

 is good : 



Ci-git Piron guinefutrien 

 Pas meme academicien. 



" Here lies Piron, who was nothing not even an academi- 

 cian." 



The following is said to be found in Old Greyfriars, 

 Edinburgh : 



Ci.gtt mafemme,fort bien 

 four son repos et pour la mien. 

 " Here snug in grave, my wife doth lie, 

 Now she's at rest, anil so am I." 



The following was made on Montmaur, a man of 

 remarkable memory, but deficient in judgment : 



Satis cette cosaque noire 

 Repose bien dovcement, 

 Montmaur, d'heureuse mimoire, 

 Attendant lejugement. 



" In this black surtout reposes sweetly Montmaur, of hap- 

 py memory, awaiting his judgment." 



EPITHALAMIUM (from tfa*fus) ; a nuptial 

 song. Among the G reeks and Romans, it was sung 

 by young men and maids at the door of the bridal 

 chamber of a new married couple. It was accom- 

 panied with shouting and stamping with the feet. It 



consisted of praises of the bridegroom and bride, with 

 wishes for their happiness. Among the Romans, the 

 husband scattered nuts among the young men at the 

 same time. Examples may be seen in Theoeritus's 

 epithalamium of Helen, and the epithalamium of 

 Catullus. 



EPITOME (from the Greek inrofiti, from !/, and 

 T>V, I cut) ; an abridgment, an abbreviation, or 

 compendious abstract. 



EPOCH, or ERA, is a certain fixed point of time, 

 made famous by some remarkable event, from 

 whence, as from a root, the ensuing years are num- 

 bered or computed. As there is no astronomical 

 consideration to render one epoch preferable to 

 another, their constitution is purely arbitrary, and, 

 therefore, various epochas have been used at different 

 times and among different nations. The following 

 article is from the Companion to the Britisli Almanac 

 for 1830: 



It will render the comparison of eras much easier 

 if we give some account of what is meant by a solar 

 and a lunar year. A solar year is that space of 

 time, during which all the seasons have their course. 

 This takes place in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 

 49 seconds ; and an approximation to that time lias 

 been adopted by those nations which have had suf- 

 ficient astronomical science to determine it. But, 

 as it would be impracticable to begin every new 

 year at a different hour of the day, wnich would be 

 necessary if the perfect year should always be com- 

 pleted before the commencement of a new one, 365 

 days have been taken as the length of a year, leav- 

 ing the odd hours and minutes to accumulate until 

 they amount to a whole day, when they are added to 

 the year, making what is called a leap year, or inter- 

 calary year, of 366 days. The various ways of doing 

 this will be detailed when we speak of the different 

 eras. Some nations still use a year of 365 days, 

 without any intercalation ; and this is called a vague 

 or erratic year, because its commencement varies 

 through all the different seasons. A lunar year 

 consists of 12 moons, or 354 days. This may be 

 convenient enough for short periods, but is so ill 

 adapted for the computation of a civilized nation, 

 that none but Mohammedans have continued in the 

 use of it, even for a little time. It suits the course 

 of time so ill, that its commencement varies, in a few 

 years through all -the seasons ; and many men 

 amongst the nations which use it can remember 

 the fasts and festivals altering from summer to win- 

 ter, and again from winter to summer, and their 

 seed time and harvest alternately wandering from 

 the beginning of the year to the end. The luni- 

 solar year is that in which the months are regulatedac- 

 cording to the course of the moon, but to which from 

 time to time, a month is added, whenever the year 

 would range too widely from its original situation. 

 This year is inconvenient, from its varying duration ; 

 but as, in a long course of years, the months remain 

 nearly at the same situation, it is less objectionable 

 than the pure lunar year. It was the mode of com- 

 putation of the Greeks and Romans, and is even now 

 that of the Chinese, Tartars, Japanese, and Jews. 

 All these varying modes render the comparison of 

 dates much more difficult than it appears to be at the 

 first view. We shall endeavour so far to simplify the 

 calculation as to enable any arithmetician to com- 

 pute, within a day or two, the eras of every nation, 

 and to reduce them to the Christian era. 



The Roman Era. The Roman year, in its arrange- 

 ment and division, is that on which our year is en- 

 tirely founded. The Romans reckoned their time 

 from the date which some of their antiquaries chose 

 to assign for the founding of Rome, viz. the 21 st of 

 April, in the second year of the sixth Olympiad, or 



