Early Eighteenth-Century Newspaper Reports compiled by Rictor Norton

Epitaph on a Fortune Teller

An EPITAPH . . . on Mrs. Christina Kyte, the late famous High-German Fortune Teller, who departed this life at her house in Brown’s Gardens, the 5th instant.

Reader stop, beneath this stone,
Here doth lye a cunning one;
Her subtle ingenuity
Far exceeded alchymy,
Whose feign’d excellence is such
As changes metals with a touch;
But here a greater change behold,
She turn’d her very breath to gold;
Yet all her riches could not save
Her fated moment from the grave.

[Weekly Journal, or The British Gazetteer, 16 April 1726]

(Texts have been modernized with regard to capitalization, italicization, and punctuation, but original spelling has been retained. This edition copyright Rictor Norton. All rights reserved. Reproduction for sale or profit prohibited. These extracts may not be archived, republished or redistributed without the permission of the compiler.)

CITATION: Rictor Norton, Early Eighteenth-Century Newspaper Reports: A Sourcebook, "Epitaph on a Fortune Teller", 23 April 2002 <http://grubstreet.rictornorton.co.uk/lowlife2.htm>

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