ht 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.
It suffices, therefore, that the Trunk and the main Branches of the
Worth of the Deceased be boldly and unaffectedly represented. Any
further detail, minutely and scrupulously pursued, especially if this
be done with laborious and antithetic discriminations, must inevitably
frustrate its own purpose; forcing the passing Spectator to this
conclusion,--either that the Dead did not possess the merits ascribed
to him, or that they who have raised a monument to his memory, and
must therefore be supposed to have been closely connected with him,
were incapable of perceiving those merits; or at least during the act
of composition had lost sight of them; for, the Understanding having
been so busy in its petty occupation, how could the heart of the
Mourner be other than cold? and in either of these cases, whether the
fault be on the part of the buried Person or the Survivors, the
Memorial is unaffecting and profitless.
Much better is it to fall short in discrimination than to pursue it
too far, or to labour it unfeelingly. For in no place are we so much
disposed to dwell upon those points, of nature and condition, wherein
all Men resemble each other, as in the Temple where the universal
Father is worshipped, or by the side of the Grave which gathers all
Human Beings to itself, and "equalizes the lofty and the low." We
suffer and we weep with the same heart; we love and are anxious for
one another in one spirit; our hopes look to the same quarter; and the
virtues by which we are all to be furthered and supported, as
patience, meekness, good-will, temperance, and temperate desires, are
in an equal degree the concern of us all. Let an Epitaph, then,
contain at least these acknowledgments to our common nature; nor let
the sense of their importance be sacrificed to a balance of opposite
qualities or minute distinctions in individual character; which if
they do not, (as will for the most part be the case) when examined,
resolve themselves into a trick of words, will, even when they are
true and just, for the most part be grievously out of place; for, as
it is probable that few only have explored these intricacies of human
nature, so can the tracing of them be interesting only to a few. But
an Epitaph is not a proud Writing shut up for the studious; it is
exposed
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