Page:The Scourge - Volume 5.djvu/44

32 An epitaph.

the hand of retributive justice is so visibly marked, that? there can be neither presumption, nor want of charity, in pointing it out to general recognition. In perfect health, in entire possession of all his faculties, and with full deliberation, he shot himself/ He has not indeed been buried, as he deserved, with the burial of a dog; but one of the English inhabitants, to whom the magistrate's cruelty, injustice, and arbitrary tyrannical conduct, had rendered him generally odious, wrote and circulated the annexed Epitaph, which, however severe it may be thought, does actually fall short of this suicide's real deserving's, at the hands of the British population ! " De mortuis nil nisi bonum" would be a maxim of mistaken lenity, if allowed to operate, to the suppression of this just tribute!

EPITAPH. Here lies in death, — thro' life who always lied; A base amalgam of deceit and pride, — A wily African of monstrous shape, The mighty Quinbus Flestrian of the C — e ! Rogue paramount — ten thousand rogues among, He rose, and shone, like Phosphorus, from dung! The wolf and fox their attributes combined, to form the odious features of his mind; Where kenneli'd deep by fear, by shame unawed* Lurk'd cruelty, rapacity, and fraud, Hypocrisy, servility, and lust; A petty tyrant, and a Judge unjust, Partial and stern! In every cause he tried, He judged like Pilate, and like Pilate died. Urged to despair by crimes, precluding hope, He chose a bullet, — to e,vade a rope Consistent knave! his life in cheating passed, , He shot himself, — to cheat the law at last! Acme of crimes, — self-murder crown'd the whole, And gave to worms his corpse,— to fiends his soul?

Atys.