UNPUBLISHED EPIGRAM BY SIR W. SCOTT (?).

(Vol. vii., p. 498.)

The lines which your correspondent R. Vincent attributes to Sir Walter Scott are part of an old English inscription which Longfellow quotes in Outremer, p. 66., and thus describes in a note:

"I subjoin this relic of old English verse entire.... It is copied from a book whose title I have forgotten, and of which I have but a single leaf, containing the poem. In describing the antiquities of the church of Stratford-upon-Avon, the writer gives the following account of a very old painting upon the wall, and of the poem which served as its motto. The painting is no longer visible, having been effaced in repairing the church:

"'Against the west wall of the nave, on the south side of the arch, was painted the martyrdom of Thomas à Becket, while kneeling at the altar of St. Benedict, in Canterbury Cathedral. Below this was the figure of an angel, probably St. Michael, supporting a long scroll, upon which were seven stanzas in old English, being an allegory of mortality.'"

The lines given at p. 498. of "N. & Q." seem to be taken from the two following stanzas, which stand third and fourth in the old inscription:

"Erth apon erth wynnys castellys and towrys,

Then seth erth unto erth thys ys all owrys.

When erth apon erth hath bylde hys bowrys,

Then schall erth for erth suffur many hard schowrys.

"Erth goth apon erth as man apon mowld,

Lyke as erth apon erth never goo schold,

Erth goth apon erth as gelsteryng gold,

And yet schall erth unto erth rather than he wold."

Dugdale, in his Antiquities of Warwickshire, p. 517., tells us that John de Stratford, who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Edward III., built a chapel on the south side of the church, "to the honour of God and of St. Thomas the Martyr;" and as at p. 521. he describes it as "in the south ile of the said church," the west wall of this chapel answers very well the description of the position of the painting, and inscription. But in The Beauties of England and Wales, vol. xv. p. 238., the chapel of the gild of the Holy Cross, in the centre of the town, is mentioned as the place in which the pictures were discovered, during some repairs which it underwent in the year 1804.

I have since ascertained that the work to which Longfellow refers is Weaver's Account of Stratford-upon-Avon.

Erica.

As a companion to the unpublished epigram in No. 186. of "N. & Q.," I beg to hand you the following epitaph, copied by myself about thirty years since, and referring, as I believe, to an old brass in the church of St. Helen's, London:

"Here lyeth y^e bodyes of

James Pomley, y^e sonne of ould

Dominick Pomley and Jane his

Wyfe: y^e said James deceased y^e 7^th

day of Januarie Anno Domini 1592

he beyng of y^e age of 88 years, and

y^e sayd Jane deceased y^e —— day

of —— D——.

Earth goeth upō earth as moulde upō moulde;

Earth goeth upō earth all glittering as golde,

As though earth to y^e earth never turne shoulde;

And yet shall earth to y^e earth sooner than he woulde."

William Williams.