#Page 11.# #Stratford-on-Avon Inscription.# A full account of this inscription has been given in the Introduction, p. xii. The lines ‘Whosoo hym be thowghte’, there mentioned as being inscribed beneath _Erthe upon Erthe_, are given by Fisher as follows:-- Whosoo hym be thowght Inwardly and ofte How hard hyt ys to flett From bede to peyt From peyt to peyne that neu{er} Schall seys Certen He wold not doo no syn all þ{is} world to wynne. The same lines are found on other monumental inscriptions. Weever (_Ancient Funeral Monuments_, p. 425) mentions them as occurring in sixteenth-century inscriptions in Churches at Saffron Walden and Faversham respectively, and Rogers (_Monuments and Monumental Inscriptions in Scotland_, ii. 210) quotes them from a tombstone in the parish of Dun. The following version is from Bodl. MS. Tanner 407, fol. 36, v^o (sixteenth century):-- He that hath thoughte ful in-wardly and ofte how hard it is to flyt fro bedde on to pyt fro pytte on to pyne whiche neuyr schal haue fyne for alle thys world to wynne wold not do a synne. #Page 16.# #MS. Laud Misc. 23.# This is the only text which is not written in metrical lines. The MS. being small, it was not as a rule possible to fit one line of the poem into a single line of the page, and the run-on lines involved waste of space. The scribe wrote verse 1 in metrical lines, verses 2 and 3 as if in two long lines, and the remainder of the poem in paragraphs, each paragraph coinciding with a verse. Each new line or paragraph is indicated by a red capital, and the metrical lines are distinguished by pause-marks (√̣, ·, √, |), and by touching up the first letter of the line in red. In vv. 6, 7, and 8, the scribe appears to have lost count of the lines, as the three verses are written in two paragraphs, and letters in the middle of a line are often marked in red. At the top of the first leaf a later hand has scribbled the words _haue made me_. A few other such scribbles occur elsewhere in the MS. l. 26 (p. 17). _Thi body that was rank and louyd of alle men, is hatyd._ The reading is inferior to MS. Lambeth, l. 27: þan þi bodi þat was rank & undeuout of alle men is bihatid-- and the change led to the placing of the pause (indicated in the MS.) after men. l. 27. _Out of the erthe cam to this erthe his wantyng garnement._ This line seems to be a compromise between the readings of MSS. Lamb. and Rawl. P. (_MS. Lamb. 28_) Out of þis erþe cam to þis erþe þis wrecchid garnement. (_MS. Rawl. P. 37_) Oute of the erthe cam the erthe wantynge his garnament. But the rest of the verse follows Lamb, rather than Rawl. P., cf. _ruly, raggid and rent_, _hidous turment_, beside Rawl. P. _disgesily ragged and to-rent_, _ful grete turment_. l. 34 has the correct reading _stinke_, as in MSS. Harl. 4486 and Rawl. P.; Lamb. repeats _swynk_.