Anonymous British

Epitaph of Madam Babington, 2

In hopes of future bliss contented here I lie Though I would have been pleased to live, yet was not displeased to die; For life hath its comforts and its sorrows too, For which to the lord of heaven our most grateful thanks are due; If it was otherwise our hopes here would rest Where nature tells us we cannot be blest How far my hopes are vain or founded well God only knows, but the last day will tell. [Catharine Haslerigg was the eldest daughter of Sir Arthur Haslerigg, Bart. , of Noseley Hall in the county of Leicester. She was born at Brooke House, London, in November 1635. She first married Col. Fenwick, and later Col. Philip Babington, another celebrated character during the commonwealth, and died at Harnham, in the parish of Bolam, Northumberland, August 28th, 1670, where she was interred in a vault cut out of a rock in the garden, now called the Tomb-garden. "She was interred in a leaden coffin, most of which, and some of the bones, were remaining when Mr. Wallis [the first historian of Northumberland] visited the place [in 1760]. Some faws [itinerant besom-makers, tinkers or muggers], however several years since, rifled the tomb, and stole part of the coffin; but the following inscriptions, the first on stone, the second painted on wood, still remain with it:. . . "] ~ The History and Antiquities of Sunderland, Bishopwearmouth, &c. , vol. 1, pg. 495, printed 1858.