The Tombstone
The
tombstone of Ann
and Penelope Smyth is a glorious example of a bodged job. The problem begins in line five
where the stonemason was obviously in two minds about how to spell Bury.
He chose wrong and had to put it right. Three lines further on he was
plainly in some uncertainty about what year it was.
He
guessed 1738. Alas, wrong again. He had to change it to 1739. By now, his
nerve had totally broken so that by the last line he was even confused
about the sex of the deceased. He started to put them down as a ‘his’,
sadly they was a 'her’
The Tombstone