"_Seguardi Opuscula._ Manuscript on vellum. This volume contains several treatises not mentioned by Bale or Pits." It was purchased by Mr. Laing for 1l. 1s. May I, therefore, add one more Query? 5. Can the present owner of this MS. (which is probably the same as the Langley copy) furnish a note of its contents? F. M. * * * * * EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. Who was the writer of the oft-quoted lines, "Underneath this marble (sable) hearse," &c. intended, as all know, for an epitaph on Mary Sidney, afterwards Countess of Pembroke, but not inscribed upon any monumental stone? They are almost universally attributed to Ben Jonson, and are included amongst his poems. But this is not conclusive evidence, as we also there find the epitaph on Drayton, which was written by Quarles. In Aubrey's MS. _Memoires of Naturall Remarques in Wilts_, these verses are said to have been "made by Mr. Willi[=a]. Browne, who wrote the Pastoralls, and they are inserted there." Mr. Britton, in his _Life of Aubrey_ (p. 96.), adds: "It is essential to observe, that Aubrey is not alone in stating them to be by Browne; for, in his note upon the subject, he left a blank for the latter's Christian name, 'William,' which was filled up by Evelyn when he perused the manuscript. Indeed, Evelyn added as a further note, '_William_, Governor to the now Earl of Oxford.'" But these lines are not to be found in Browne's _Pastorals_. In book ii., song 4., there is an epitaph, but which bears little resemblance to the one in question. It concludes with the following conceit: "If to the grave there ever was assign'd One like this nymph in body and in minde, We wish here in balme, not vainely spent, To fit this maiden with a monument, For brass, and marble, were they seated here, Would fret, or melt in tears, to lye so near." Addison, in _The Spectator_, No. 323., speaks of this epitaph as "written by an uncertain author." This was not more than seventy-five or eighty years after Jonson's death. In the lives of the Sidneys, and in Ballard's _Memoirs of Celebrated Ladies_ (1752), no author is mentioned; but the latter speaks of the epitaph as likely to be more lasting than marble or brass. To the six lines which generally stand alone, the following are added in the two last-mentioned works: "Marble pyles let no man raise, To her name, for after daies, Some kind woman, born as she, Reading this like Niobe, Shall turn marble, and become, Both her mourner and her tomb." These are also given by Brydges in his _Peers Of James II._, but they are not in Jonson's works. Did they originally form part of the epitaph, or are they the production of another and later author? That this epitaph should be attributed to Jonson, may possibly have arisen from the following lines being confounded with it. Jacob, in his _English Poets_, says--