Ibid. ‘John Carpenter, townclerk of London, in the reign of Henry V, caused with great expense to be curiously painted upon board, about the north cloister of Paule’s, a monument of Death leading all estates, with the speeches of Death, and answer of every state. This cloister was pulled down 1549.’
Cf. Sir T. More, Works (ed. 1557, folio), p. 77: ‘We wer never so gretly moved by the beholding of the Daunce of Deth pictured in Paule’s.’
[Page 30.] Maitland MS. Omitted by Pinkerton from his printed text of the Maitland MS. as ‘a silly jingling piece, shewing the vanity of man, who is but earth, building upon earth: priding himself in gold which is but earth’, &c. Pinkerton also knew of ‘several pieces of the same kind in MSS. of Old English poetry’, see Note on MS. Harl. 2253, p. 36. He had strong views against the indiscriminate printing of old MSS., and was unwilling to sacrifice ‘the character of a man of taste to that of an antiquary; as of all characters he should the least chuse that of an hoarder of ancient dirt’.
[Page 32.] MS. Cambridge (Univ. Libr. I. 1. iv. 9). l. 17. The reading slogh is supported by Professor Skeat. It is difficult to see what meaning could be attached to flogh, as in Heuser’s text.
[Page 33.] l. 48. As wroth as the wynde was a favourite mediaeval proverb. Cf. Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight, l. 319: he wex as wroth as wynde; Piers Plowman, C. iv. 486: As wroth as the wynd wex Mede ther-after; Richard the Redeles, iii. 153: thei woll be wroth as the wynde.
[ ANALOGUES.]
It may be of interest to note here some other instances of the use of the theme Earth upon Earth, not immediately connected with the poem under discussion.
An early instance of the phrase occurs in a Poem on the Death of Edward IV, written by Skelton probably soon after the event (9th April, 1483), beginning Miseremini mei ye that ben my ffryndys. Verse 2 runs as follows:—
I slepe now in molde, as it is naturall
That erth vnto erth hath his reuerture: