WRITTEN ON THE SPOT WHERE CARDINAL WOLSEY IS

SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN BURIED, IN

LEICESTER ABBEY.

PEERS, priests and princes, lords of every clan,
Who in the title's vapour lose the man :

Mark this plain spot, where groveling brambles wave,
In humble verdure over WOLSEY's grave:
His purple honours and pontific pride,
With all life's baubles now are laid aside;
Here stripp'd to nature, and without disguise,
The child of fortune undistinguish'd lies;
O'er his cold turf th' unmanner'd travellers go,
Nor heed how great a statesman rots below.

ON A LAWYER.

HIC JACET, JACOBUS STRAW,
Who forty years follow'd the law;
When he dyed,

The devil cryed,
JAMES, give us your paw.

TO THE MEMORY OF

SIR HENRY GOODYER,

Of Polesworth.

AN ill yeare of a GOODYER us bereft,
Who, gon to God, much lacke of him here left,
Full of good gifts, of body and of minde,
Wise, comely, learned, eloquent and kind.

UPON A MAN OF LOW ORIGIN,

But who, in respect to his name, claimed kindred with a most noble family. Being a notorious lyar, the following epitaph was written on him.

HERE lyes M. F. the sonne of a beare-ward,

Who would needs beare armes in despight of the Hernaught,

Which was a lyon as blacke as teat-stone,

With a sword in his pawes instead of a whetstone. Five sonnes had this lyar, 'tis worth revealing, Two arrant lyars, and three hang'd for stealing; His daughters were nine, never free from sores, Three crooked apostles, and sixe arrant w

-S.

IN PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.

ON SIR RICHARD WORME. 1589.

DOES worm eat Worme? Knight Worme this truth confirms,

For here, with worms, lies Worme a dish for worms, Does worm eat Worme? sure Worme will this deny, For Worme with worms, a dish for worms don't lie. 'Tis so, and 'tis not so, for free from worms 'Tis certain Worme is blest without his worms.

ON MR. SANDS.

WHO would live in other's breath?
Fame deceives the dead man's trust;
When our names doe change by death,
SANDS I was, and now am dust.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL EPITAPH OF

W. C. Esq. OR TWICE FIVE HUNDRED. CLOWDED by threat'ning Disasters.

For a memento mori on the philosopher's (tomb) stone.

TYR'D of the world, at last I found
This nest, to rest me in the ground;
I'm naked, yet I feel no cold,
Feed that, that had fed me of old,
And quietly enjoy this place,
With friends about of my own race;
Weep not then here, but banish fears,
Or let this dust dry up your tears:
My soul's in Heav'n, with saints in peace,
Where angels sing, and never cease.
These grounds of man's mortality,
Rests here awhile, till perfectly
Putrify'd, purg'd, cleansed, and at last
Revived with soul and spirit, by blast
Of trumpet, which being joined, shall shine,
And be spiritual fixt divine,

Like Christ, and one for ever be.

V. C.

Which being thus, is double you see.

W. C.

Who this punning astrologer W. C. was we know not, unless he be William Cooper, at the sign of the Pelican, in Little Britain, the publisher of the curi ous volume on the Philosopher's Stone, &c. in 1675, dedicated to the honourable Robert Boyle and Elias Ashmole, Esq. to which the epitaph is prefixed. A valuable catalogue of alcymical books closes this scarce little book.

ON WILLIAM LAMBE.

As I was so be yee,
As I am ye shall bee,
That I gave, that I have,
That I spent, that I had :
Thus I end all my cost,
That I left, that I lost.

IN ST. PAULS.

HERElyes JOHN DOD, a servant of God, to whom he

is gone.

Father, or mother, or sister, or brother, he never

knew none.

A headborough, and a constable, a man of fame,
The first of his house, and last of his name.

Dyed, buried, and deceast, the fifteenth of May,
One thousand five hundred and fifteen, being Whitson
Monday.

ON THE ABBÉ DE LA RIVIERE.

Who left an hundred crowns to the person who produced the best epitaph on him.

HERE lies, where fame stands on record,
High as his birth can do:

Was prudent, wise-(your ear-a word-
The writer here lies too.

You'll ask, perhaps and, asking frown-
Why then his praise I've thunder'd,

Be mute, for one poetic crown

I gain in coin a hundred.