In Search of Gravestones Old and Curious Part 11

"Born to a course of Manly action free, I dauntless trod ye fluctuating sea In Pompous War or happier Peace to bring Joy to my Sire and honour to my King.

And much by favour of the G.o.d was done Ere half the term of human life was run.

One fatal night, returning from the bay Where British fleets ye Gallic land survey, Whilst with warm hope my trembling heart beat high, My friends, my kindred, and my country nigh, Lasht by the winds the waves arose and bore Our s.h.i.+p in shattered fragments to the sh.o.r.e.

There ye flak'd surge opprest my darkening sight, And there my eyes for ever lost the light.

"Captain George Colvill of the Private s.h.i.+p of War 'Amazon,' and only son of Robert Colvill of Bangor, was wrecked near this ground 25th February 1780, in ye 22nd year of his age."

A possible explanation of the long endurance of this slate slab may be found in the practice which prevails in this and some other churchyards of giving all such memorials a periodical coat of paint; of which, however, in the case here quoted there is no remaining trace.

Altogether, primitive as they may be, the gravestones of the last century in Ireland, so far as I have seen them, compare favourably with the works of the hedge-mason in England which we have seen in earlier chapters. Even the poor pillar of rough stone, unhewn, ungarnished, and bare as it is, represents an affectionate remembrance of the dead which is full of pathos, and has a refinement in its simplicity which commands our sympathy far above the semi-barbarous engravings of heads and skulls which we have previously pictured. The immaturity of provincial art in Ireland is at least redeemed by an absence of such monstrous figures and designs as we at the present day usually a.s.sociate with the carvings of savages in the African interior.

But the eighteenth-century gravestones in Ireland are not all of the primitive kind--many of them being as artistic and well-finished as any to be found in other parts of the British Isles. The predominant type is the "I.H.S.," surmounted by the cross, which appears on probably four-fifths of the inscribed stones of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Ireland. The only instances which came under my notice bearing any resemblance to the incipient notions of human heads so frequently met with in certain parts of England were the three here copied (Fig. 91). Nos. 2 and 3 are taken from gravestones in the old churchyard near Queenstown, and the other appears in duplicate on one stone at Muckross Abbey by the Lakes of Killarney.[11] The stately wreck of Muckross Abbey has in its decay enclosed within its walls the tombs of knights and heroes whose monuments stand in gorgeous contrast to the desolation which is mouldering around them; while on the south side of the ancient edifice is the graveyard in which the peasant-fathers of the hamlet sleep, the green mounds which cover them in some instances marked by carved stones taken from the adjacent ruins. Both Abbey and grounds are still used for interments, together with the enclosure about the little church of Killaghie on the neighbouring eminence--a church which (like a few others) enjoys the reputation of being the smallest in the kingdom.

[Footnote 11: The Muckross stone (No. 1) was overgrown with ivy which quite covered up the inscription, but its date was probably about 1750. Of the two from Queenstown, No. 2 is to Mary Gammell, 1793, aged 53; and No. 3 to Roger Brettridge, 1776, aged 63.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 90. BANGOR, IRELAND.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 91. MUCKROSS AND QUEENSTOWN.]

I leave to the ethnologists the task of accounting for these abnormal carvings in the South of Ireland, and a.s.sociating them with the like productions of the same period in the South of England. Or perhaps I ought rather to excuse my insufficient researches, which, though spread over a broad area, are yet confined to but a few of the many spots available, and may very probably have pa.s.sed by unexplored the fruitful fields. But, in the words of Professor Stephens, the apostle of Runic monuments, I claim for this work that it is "only a beginning, a breaking of the ice, a ground upon which others may build." My pages are but "feelers groping out things and thoughts for further examination."

CHAPTER XI.

OLD GRAVESTONES IN SCOTLAND.

A very peculiar interest attaches to the old stones which survive in the burial-grounds of Scotland. Regarded generally they are of a description quite apart from the prevalent features of their English and Irish prototypes. Taking the same period as. .h.i.therto in limiting our purview of the subject, that is from the latter part of the seventeenth to the early part of the nineteenth century, it may perhaps be said that the Scottish headstones are tablets of Scottish history and registers of Scottish character during a long and memorable time. The one all-prevalent feature everywhere is indicative of the severe piety and self-sacrifice of an age and a people remarkable for one of the simplest professions of faith that has ever existed under the Christian dispensation. The rigid discipline, contempt for form, and sustained humility of the old Covenanters are written deeply in the modest stones which mark the green graves of their faithful dead during a period of fully two hundred years. The vainglory of a graven stone to exalt the virtues of imperfect men and women was to them a forbidden thing; the ostentation even of a name carved on a slab was at variance with doctrine; the cravings of a poor humanity to be remembered after death had to be satisfied with bare initials, and initials are all that were written on the gravestones in many thousands of cases, probably ninety per cent, of the whole, throughout the eighteenth century and approximate years. But the rule was not without its exceptions, often of novel and peculiar description. The skull and crossbone series, so common in the south, have no place in North Britain; while the symbol of the cross, so frequent in Ireland, is very rarely to be found in any shape whatever within the boundaries of a Scottish burial-place. I present four specimen types from the old chapel-yard at Inverness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 92. INVERNESS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 93. BRAEMAR.]

FIG. 92.--AT INVERNESS.

On the stone No. 2 the tailor's tools--shears, goose, and bodkin--are clear enough, and I was told that the figures on the stone in the lower left-hand corner (No. 3) are locally recognized as the shuttle and some other requisite of the weaver's trade. Inverness had spinning and weaving for its staple industries when Pennant visited the place in 1759. Its exports of cordage and sacking were considerable, and (says Pennant) "the linen manufacture saves the town above 3000 a year, which used to go to Holland."

In the 1698 example (No. 1) the short "and" (&) leaves no doubt that W.F. & J. McP. (probably McPherson and his wife) are there buried; and the similar information is almost as certainly conveyed in the manifold cases in which appears the sign which occupies the same position in the two lower stones (Nos. 3 and 4). These, however, are all of later date, and may be set down as developments, or rather corruptions, of the original form. The same signs, however, constantly occur in all the northern graveyards.

Scotland has also its cruder form of memorial in the rough unhewn slabs of native freestone, which are used in all parts of the British Isles wherever such material is readily procurable.

FIG. 93.--AT BRAEMAR.

Two of these slabs of different degrees are seen in my Braemar sketch, but both seem of one family and serve to shew us the unconscious evolution of a doctrinal law into a national custom. The employment of initials, originally the sacrifice and self-denial of a dissentient faith, is here, as in other instances, combined with the Catholic emblem of the Cross. This little graveyard of Braemar, lying among the moors and mountains which surround Balmoral, and accustomed to receiving ill.u.s.trious pilgrims whose shoe-string the poor gravestone tramp is not worthy to unloose, is still used for indiscriminate burials, and furnishes several examples of Roman Catholic interments.

Wherever such are found in Scotland, bearing dates of the eighteenth century, they are usually of the rough character depicted in the sketch. The rec.u.mbent slab in the same drawing is given to ill.u.s.trate the table or altar stone, which throughout Scotland has been used all through the Covenantic period to evade the Covenantic rule of the simple anonymous gravestone, for such memorials are almost invariably engraved and inscribed with designs and epitaphs, sometimes of the most elaborate character. But these are not mere gravestones: they are "tombs."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 94. STIRLING]

FIG. 94.--AT STIRLING.

In all parts of Scotland at which we find departures from the conventional simplicity of the gravestone, the variation inclines abundantly towards the symbols of trade and husbandry. At Stirling, in the n.o.ble churchyard perched on the Castle Rock, the weaver's shuttle noticed at Inverness appears in many varieties, for Pennant tells us that in 1772 Stirling, with only 4000 inhabitants, was an important factory of "tartanes and shalloons," and employed about thirty looms in making carpets.[12] Occasionally the bobbin is represented alone, but the predominant fas.h.i.+on is the shuttle open and revealing the bobbin in its place. This is as it appears in No. 1 of the four sketches from Stirling, where it seems to indicate, with the shovel and rake, a mingling of weaver and agriculturist. The other trade emblems speak for themselves, excepting the reversed figure 4 in the stone of 1710 (No. 3). This sign has been variously interpreted, but the most reliable authorities say that it is a merchant's mark used not only in Stirling but in other parts of Scotland, if not of England. There are in Howff Burial-ground, Dundee, and in many country churchyards round about that town and Stirling, numerous varieties of this figure, some having the "4" in the ordinary unreversed shape, some with and some without the *, some of both shapes resting on the letter "M," and others independent of any support whatever. It has also been supposed to have some connection with the masons' marks frequently to be seen in old churches, and is even regarded as possibly of prehistoric origin.[13]

[Footnote 12: Pennant p.r.o.nounced the view from Stirling heights "the finest in Scotland."]

[Footnote 13: The vulgar explanation of the sign is "4d. discount on the s.h.i.+lling," and some of the guide-books are not much better informed when they a.s.sume that it marks Stirling as the fourth city of Scotland, for in the old roll of Scottish burghs Stirling stands fifth.]

FIG. 95.--AT BLAIRGOWRIE.

The stone copied at Blairgowrie is an enigma which I scarcely dare to unravel, but it will admit of several interpretations. "I.E." probably stands for John Elder and "M.H." for his "spouse," but to set out John Elder's name in full, and at the same time to insert his initials, shews either a misconception of, or disregard for, the principles and usages of the Presbytery. Otherwise, in some respects, this example is almost worthy to be cla.s.sed with the more degenerate forms of churchyard sculpture in England; the skull, the crown, the hour-gla.s.s, the coffin, and the bones being all well-known and conventional signs.

The compa.s.ses may stand for John Elder's profession, but the figure which resembles a cheese-cutter, just below the crown, can only be a subject of conjecture. This stone, which is one of the least artistic I have met with in Scotland, is an evidence to shew that the rural sculptor was as ready in the north as in the south to blossom forth had he not been checked by the rigours of the Church. At times indeed the mortal pa.s.sion for a name to live to posterity was too strong to be altogether curbed, as we may see manifested even in the prescribed initials when they are moulded of heroic size, from 8 to 10 inches being no uncommon height. Remarkable also is the fact just mentioned (page 86) that, concurrently with the erection of these dumb headstones, there were flat or table stones[14] allowed, upon which not only were the names and virtues of the departed fully set forth, but all sorts of emblematical devices introduced. The table tomb was probably in itself a vanity, and, the boundary pa.s.sed, there appears to have been no limit to its excesses. There are a great many instances of this at Inverness, Aberdeen, Keith, Dunblane, and elsewhere, and the stone which appears in the sketch from Braemar is only one of several in that very limited s.p.a.ce. Such exceptional cases seem to indicate some local relaxation from the austerity of the period, which was apparently most intense in the centres of population. Humility at the grave extended even to the material of the gravestone. At Aberdeen, the Granite City, few of the last-century gravestones are of any better material than the soft sandstones which must have been imported from Elgin or the south. The rule of initials was almost universal. In like manner, when it became the custom to purchase grave-s.p.a.ces, the simplest possible words were employed to denote the owners.h.i.+p. I noticed one stone in Aberdeen bearing on its face the medallion portrait of a lady, and only the words of Isaiah, chapter xl. verse 6: "The voice said, All flesh is gra.s.s, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." At the back of the stone is written: "This burying ground, containing two graves, belongs to William Rait, Merchant. Aberdeen, 1800." The practice of carving on both faces of the headstone is very common in Scotland, and, so far as I have observed, in Scotland alone; but, strange as it may seem, Scotland and Ireland when they write gravestone inscriptions have one habit in common, that of beginning their epitaphs, not with the name of the deceased person, but with the name of the person who provides the stone. Thus:--

Erected by William Brown to his Father John Brown, etc., etc.

[Footnote 14: It has been suggested to me that these "tombs" were the luxuries of the wealthier inhabitants.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 95. BLAIRGOWRIE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 96. LAUFEN.

1. Cut into stone.

2. Anchor of iron on dwarf stone pillar.

3. Heart and anchor of thin iron on dwarf stone pillar.

4. Iron plate and rod.

5. Wooden cross.

6. Wooden cross.]

CHAPTER XII.

OLD GRAVESTONES ABROAD.

"Abroad" is a big place, and no sufficient treatment under the head of this chapter is possible except to one who has had very great experience and extended research. Nevertheless I may, with all due diffidence and modesty, tell the little I know on the subject. My opportunities of investigation have been few, and restricted to a limited area--so restricted and so limited that I cannot tell whether or not the observations I have made may be taken as indications of national habits or merely as idiosyncrasies of the people inhabiting the particular localities which I was able to visit. All the churchyards which I have seen in France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland very much resemble each other, and are altogether unlike the graveyards of Great Britain and her children. It is to the villages we should naturally go for primitive memorials of the dead, but in all the continental villages which I have visited memorials of a permanent character, either old or new, are scarcely to be seen.

Occasionally a stone slab may be encountered, but almost always of recent date. At Laufen in the Canton of Zurich, near the Falls of the Rhine, I selected almost at random the examples of memorials shewn in my sketch (Fig. 96), one or other of which was at the head of nearly every grave.

FIG. 96.--AT LAUFEN.

The average height of these mementoes was about 2 feet, and all the dates which I saw were of the last twenty-five years. Permanence indeed is apparently not considered as it is with us in the like circ.u.mstances. The British gravestone is trusted to perpetuate at least the names of our departed friends down to the days of our posterity, but the provision made by our neighbours seems to have been for the existing generation only. Posterity does not trouble the villagers of Switzerland nor their prototypes of other nations around them. This fact was strongly exemplified at Neuhausen, a small place on the other bank of the Rhine, "five minutes from Germany" we were told.

FIG. 97.--AT NEUHAUSEN.