Thomas Grills Epitaph

Farewell Vain World – Thomas Grills Epitaph

Farewell vain world, I’ve seen enough of thee.
and now I’m careless, of what thou sayest of me.
Thy smiles I court not: nor  thy frowns I fear.
My days are passed, and I lie quiet here.
What faults in me you saw: take care to shun.

Judge first at home, enough there’s to be done:
My children dear, grieve not for me tis vain.
In heaven I trust we all shall meet again.

It was the opening line – ‘Farewell Vain World’, that caught my eye. I thought that it was quite a powerful statement for a country person, albeit a Yeoman. So I fired up Duck Duck Go and discovered  an immediate hit on the blog that traffics under the title – Vast Public Indifference.

In a blog post that dates to Tuesday 25 November 2008 the topic is extensively explored. 

It seems that the earliest example found by date is 1742. Vast Public Indifference imagines it comes from a published source because it crops up in here in England, as well as South Carolina, and Boston in the United States. 

Variant forms of this epitaph were known to be associated with suicides. 

That rounds out this little detour for me. I have no information to suggest that Grills took his own life. Far from it, he lived to a good age, 69. Fortunately he predeceased his son, Thomas who only made it to 35. Of him perhaps more later. More likely the stones will continue to weather and decay, and remain largely unobserved. People of today seem more interested in a different form of tablet!