Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/18

Rh good satire on the affectation of clothing epitaphs in execrable modern Latinity. "I do desire that it may not be engraved in the Greek or Latin lingos, and much less in the French, which I abominate, but in plain English, that when the angel comes to pipe all hands at the great day, he may know that I am a British man, and speak to me in my mother tongue." Little less absurd is the formulary, or set of phrases, with which these precious morceaux sometimes commence—such as Siste iterum, Viator; Audi, Viator—both occurring on a monument in the church of which we are speaking; apostrophes highly appropriate on the Roman sepulchral altars from which they were adopted, these being placed by the side of the common highways, and consequently seen by every viator, or traveller, who passed along them; but altogether incongruous in a place of worship, whither people go for other purposes than to read the puerilities of vanity, or nonsense of pedantry.

Newton church stands upon a bed of white lyas, in which are imbedded astonishing quantities of the casts or impressions of that singular fossil the Cornu Ammonis. These accompany our road through Corston and Keynsham, exhibiting themselves of all sizes, from the dimensions of a half-crown to a diameter of twenty inches, forming a