Cf. Sir T. More, _Works_ (ed. 1557, folio), p. 77: ‘We wer never so gretly moved by the beholding of the Daunce of Deth pictured in Paule’s.’ #Page 30.# #Maitland MS.# Omitted by Pinkerton from his printed text of the Maitland MS. as ‘a silly jingling piece, shewing the vanity of man, who is but earth, building upon earth: priding himself in gold which is but earth’, &c. Pinkerton also knew of ‘several pieces of the same kind in MSS. of Old English poetry’, see Note on MS. Harl. 2253, p. 36. He had strong views against the indiscriminate printing of old MSS., and was unwilling to sacrifice ‘the character of a man of taste to that of an antiquary; as of all characters he should the least chuse that of an hoarder of ancient dirt’. #Page 32.# #MS. Cambridge# (Univ. Libr. I. 1. iv. 9). l. 17. The reading _slogh_ is supported by Professor Skeat. It is difficult to see what meaning could be attached to _flogh_, as in Heuser’s text. #Page 33.# l. 48. _As wroth as the wynde_ was a favourite mediaeval proverb. Cf. _Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight_, l. 319: he wex as wroth as wynde; _Piers Plowman_, C. iv. 486: As wroth as the wynd wex Mede ther-after; _Richard the Redeles_, iii. 153: thei woll be wroth as the wynde. ANALOGUES. It may be of interest to note here some other instances of the use of the theme _Earth upon Earth_, not immediately connected with the poem under discussion. An early instance of the phrase occurs in a Poem on the Death of Edward IV, written by Skelton probably soon after the event (9th April, 1483), beginning _Miseremini mei ye that ben my ffryndys_. Verse 2 runs as follows:-- I slepe now in molde, as it is naturall That erth vnto erth hath his reuerture: What ordeyned God to be terestyall, Without recours to the erth of nature? Who to lyue euer may himselfe assure? What is it to trust on mutabilyte, Sith that in this world nothing may indure? For now am I gone, that late was in prosperyte: To presume thervppon, it is but a vanyte, Not certayne, but as a chery fayre full of wo: Reygned not I of late in greate felycite? _Et, ecce, nunc in pulvere dormio!_ (_Poetical Works of Skelton_, ed. Dyce, I. i; London, 1843). The poem was inserted amongst the imprinted works of Lydgate, who could not have been alive in 1483, cf. MS. Harl. 4011, fol. 169, v^o, where it occurs among Lydgate’s works. In John Taylor’s _Trauels of Twelve-Pence_, 1630 folio (Spenser Soc. reprint, p. 82), this verse occurs:-- Far[2] though from _Earth_ man hath originall, And to the _Earth_, from whence he came doth fall, Though he be Earth, & can claime nought but earth, (As the fraile portion due vnto his birth) Yet many thousands that the earth doth breed, Haue no place (certain) where to lodge or feed.