"If courtly bards adorn each statesman's bust, And strew their laurels o'er each warrior's dust Alike immortalise, as good and great, Him who enslaved as him who saved the state, Surely the muse (a rustic minstrel) may Drop one wild flower upon a poor man's clay; This artless tribute to his mem'ry give Whose life was such as heroes seldom live. In worldly knowledge, poor indeed his store-- He knew the village and he scarce knew more. The worth of heavenly truth he justly knew-- In faith a Christian, and in practice too. Yes, here lies one, excel him ye who can; Go! imitate the virtues of that man!" First amongst notable sextons is the name of Old Scarlett, who died July 2, 1591, at the good old age of ninety-eight, and occupied for a long time the position as sexton of Peterborough Cathedral. He buried two generations of his fellow-creatures. A portrait of him, placed at the west end of that noble church, has perpetuated his fame, and caused him to be introduced in effigy in various publications. Dr. Robert Chambers in his entertaining work, the "Book of Days," writes: "And what a lively effigy--short, stout, hardy, and self-complacent, perfectly satisfied, and perhaps even proud, of his profession, and content to be exhibited with all its insignia about him! Two queens had passed through his hands into that bed which gives a lasting rest to queens and to peasants alike. An officer of Death, who had so long defied his principal, could not but have made some impression on the minds of bishop, dean, prebends, and other magnates of the Cathedral, and hence, as we may suppose, the erection of this lively portraiture of the old man, which is believed to have been only once renewed since it was first put up. Dr. Dibdin, who last copied it, tells us that 'Old Scarlett's jacket and trunkhose are of a brownish red, his stockings blue, his shoes black, tied with blue ribbons, and the soles of his feet red. The cap upon his head is red, and so also is the ground of the coat armour.'" The following lines below his portrait are characteristic of his age:-- You see old Scarlett's picture stand on hie; But at your feet here doth his body lye. His gravestone doth his age and death-time show, His office by heis token [s] you may know. Second to none for strength and sturdy lymm, A scare-babe mighty voice, with visage grim; He had inter'd two queenes within this place, And this townes householders in his life's space Twice over; but at length his own time came What he for others did, for him the same Was done: no doubt his soule doth live for aye, In heaven, though his body clad in clay. The first of the queens interred by Scarlett was Catherine, the divorced wife of Henry VIII, who died in 1535, at Kimbolton Castle, in Huntingdonshire. The second was Mary Queen of Scots, who was beheaded at Fotheringay in 1587, and first interred here, though subsequently transported to Westminster Abbey.