Montgomery’s reprint of the poem in 1827 was taken from Bateman’s version, and differs from it only in some very slight corrections in spelling. It has been suggested that this reprint was the source of the _Earth upon Earth_ Epitaphs which occur, but these were current from the sixteenth century on, and, as has been already pointed out (see Introduction, pp. xxxvi ff.), the usual form of the Epitaph, even in the latest versions, differed from that of the actual poem. #Page 7.# #MS. Selden Supra 53.# This text omits verse 5, and inverts the normal order of verses 4 and 6 (see Table on p. xvii of Introduction). The text is written in a neat hand in the left-hand column on the back of a spare leaf (fol. 159) at the end of the MS., after Lydgate’s _Dance of Macabre_. The right-hand column contains Latin scribblings, perhaps by the scribe who re-wrote small portions of _Erthe upon Erthe_ (see p. 7, footnotes). A few lines are scribbled in another hand upon the front side of the leaf, which is otherwise blank. The back of the leaf was evidently unprotected, and is much rubbed and worn. The space below Lydgate’s last verse and colophon on fol. 158 v^o contains two odd stanzas in English in the same metre as Lydgate’s poem, beginning ‘Let se your hand my ladi, dam emperys’, in a hand of the late fifteenth century, and a French stanza of four lines (‘Qui met son cuer tout en Deu, Il a son cuer et si a Deu’, &c.) in a French hand, perhaps as late as 1500. Both of these were quite possibly inserted in the MS. later than _Erthe upon Erthe_, the exact date of which is indeterminate, but it was probably copied in between 1450 and 1500. #Page 8.# #MS. Egerton 1995.# This MS. was evidently a Commonplace book. Its contents are described by Gairdner, _Collections of a London Citizen_ (Camden Society, 1876). The MS. is written throughout in fifteenth-century hand, and appears to be the work of one scribe. Gairdner thinks the whole collection may be ascribed to William Gregory of the Skinners’ Company, who was Mayor of London in 1451, and who seems to have been the author of part, at least, of the Chronicle of London at the end of the MS. #Page 10.# #MS. Brighton.# Fiedler’s account of this MS. is as follows:-- ‘Noch eine andre Fassung des Gedichtes habe ich mir vor einigen Jahren aus einer Handschrift abgeschrieben, die damals im Besitze eines Antiquars in Brighton war, über deren weiteren Verbleib ich aber nichts ermitteln könnte. Es war eine Pergamenthandschrift, folio, von 90 Blättern. Sie enthielt eine lateinische Abhandlung über die sieben Sacramente “Oculi Sacerdotis”, und auf der ursprünglich frei gebliebenen Rückseite des letzten Blattes war von einer Hand des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts das englische Gedicht eingetragen.’ (_Mod. Lang. Review_, III. iii. 219.)