Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· INTELLECTUAL L I FE IN THE COLONIAL SOUTH '
Here lyes inclos' d the Corpes of Him
Who had for every dying Lim
A living Vertue; could extract
From Theory, and put in Act
Wisdome, Humane, and Things divine;
And by the levell of that Lyne
Drew all his life, and squared his Deeds;
Who as he sow'd, shall reape those seeds,
To his increase a thousand fold;
Whose noble Name is here enrold
With other Captaines of this Land,
Slaine by many a bloody hand.
Heroic Thorpe sleepe in thy Urne,
Whilst making Hearts in Incense burne
Of Love to thee, and to thy Fame,
Thy Valor, Venue, and thy Name.IOS
Frequent are the simple epitaphs actually carved on tombstones. Fairly
characteristic is a «tribute" of r650 to Mrs. Alice Miles Jordan of Surry
County in Virginia:
Reader, her dust is here enclosed
Who was of witt & grace composed.
Her life was virtuous during breathbut
highly glorious in her death.lo6
More dramatic and implicitly Christian is the Maryland epitaph on Dr.
Richard Tilghman's huge slab:
Always remember
The 5 th of November
But do not forgett
Death will have no lett
Consider thy end
And thy time well spend
& so shall thou have
A crown in thy grave
or the lines to Henrietta Maria Lloyd, who died in r697 at the age of
fifty:
Shee who now takes her rest within this tomb,
Had Rachells face and Leas fruitful womb,
Abigails wisdom, Lydeas faithful heart,
With Martha's care and Mary's better part.107
The two elegies on Nathaniel Bacon included in John Cotton's manuscript
history of the Rebellion are discussed above. The first, as already