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Sir Hugh Evans was laid by the side of his old friend and old antagonist, Doctor Caius; and, for many years, there was a story among the good wives of Windsor, that the fairies, once a year, danced round the grave of Sir Hugh, the turf upon it growing as bright as emeralds; and, in a hawthorn bush, but a few paces from the spot, “melodious birds” did, at certain seasons, “sing madrigals.”

We have now to speak of the epitaph of the good Sir Hugh. More than four hundred years have passed away since the mortal part of that most worthy piece of Welsh divinity was consigned to dust. It may be a lesson to ambition to learn that the exact spot where he was buried cannot, at the present time, be verified: the ablest antiquarians are at odds about it. Proud, however,—and, we trust, not unbecomingly so,—are we to be the means of publishing to the world the epitaph of Sir Hugh, copied from his tombstone, in the possession of a gentleman in Berkshire, who has resisted our most earnest supplications that he would suffer us to make known his name. This favour he has resolutely refused; but has, in the most handsome manner, presented us with the use of the tombstone, together with a most voluminous, and no less satisfactory, account of its genuineness. Happy should we have been could we have found room for the history of the relic at full. Leaving it, however, for the archives of the Antiquarian Society, we must content ourselves with stating that the document fully proves that the tombstone was erected from the private munificence of Master Slender, and that the pithy and most touching epitaph inscribed upon it was selected by his happy taste, as combining all the excellences of an epitaph in the fewest words—these words having the further recommendation of being uttered, on a memorable occasion, by the deceased himself. The words were repeated to Master Slender by his servant Simple, despatched, on a certain day, by Sir Hugh with a letter touching the wooing of Anne Page. After long pondering, reviewing every circumstance of his ancient friendship with the dead Sir Hugh,—seated, one sunny afternoon, on the bench outside the “Garter,” the words came jump again into the mind of Slender; and quickly raising and emptying his tankard, he marched, like a man resolved, to the stone-cutter, and—for he cared not for Latin—bade the workman cut on the stone—(the inscription, considering its age, is in a wonderful state of preservation)—the words that follow:—