as its purest gold, by tortures try'd; The saint sustain'd it, but the woman dy'd.

This epitaph, as well as the second quoted from Ben Jonson, has indeed one fault; the name is omitted. The end of an epitaph is to convey some account of the dead; and to what purpose is anything told of him whose whose name is concealed? The name, it is true, may be inscribed by itself upon the stone; but such a shift of the poet is like that of an unskilful painter, who is obliged to make his purpose known by adventitious help.

Amongst the epitaphs of a punning and ludicrous cast, we know of none prettier than that which is said to have been written by Mr Prior on himself, wherein he is pleasantly satirical upon the folly of those who value themselves upon account of the long series of ancestors through which they can trace their pedigree.