that the epitaph should be a rhymed stanza of four lines, of which
lines each magistrate should contribute one. The senior accordingly
began, and having deeply ruminated he produced the following:--

Here lies Anderson, Provost of Dundee.

This formed a neat and striking introduction, going (so to speak)
to the heart of things at once, but leaving room for subsequent
amplification. The second magistrate perceived this, and felt that
the idea was such a good one that it ought to be followed up. He
therefore produced the line,

Here lies Him, here lies He:

thus repeating in different modifications the same grand thought,
after the style which has been adopted by Burke, Chalmers, Melvill,
and other great orators. The third magistrate, whose turn had now
arrived, felt that the foundation had thus been substantially laid
down, and that the time had come to erect upon it a superstructure
of reflection, inference, or exclamation. With the simplicity of
genius he wrote as follows, availing himself of a poet's license
to slightly alter the ordinary forms of language:--

Hallelujah, Hallelujee!

The epitaph being thus, as it were, rounded and complete, the
fourth contributor to it found himself in a difficulty; wherefore
add anything to that which needed and in truth admitted nothing
more? Still the stanza must he completed. What should he do?
He would fall back on the earliest recollections of his youth--he