Heare lyes (expecting the second
Comminge of our Savior Christ
Jesus) the body of Edmond Spencer,
The Prince of Poets in his tyme,
Other witnesse than the works
Which he left behinde him.
He was borne in London in the yeare 1553,
And died in the year 1598.
The epitaph of Michael Drayton, another of the Elizabethan poets, said by some to be the composition of Ben Jonson, and by others to be by Quarles, has also a species of quaint beauty and solemnity which raises it above the ordinary level. It was originally in gilt letters:
Michael Draiton, Esq.