ANCIENT EPITAPHS long time he bore, Physicians were in vain," etc. In a similar manner, though to a far less extent, the quaint epitaph that formerly existed in a private chapel in Tiverton churchyard, to Edward Courtenay, the third Earl of Devon, and his Countess, appears to have been copied with variations. Writing early in the seventeenth century, Risdon, in his Survey of Devonshire, gives this epitaph thus:—
Hoe! hoe! who lies here?
'Tis I, the good Erle of Devonshire,
With Kate my wife to mee full dere,
Wee lyved togeather fyfty-fyve yere.
That wee spent we had,
That wee lefte wee loste,
That wee gave wee have. 1419.
This appeared in old Doncaster church in the following form:—
Hoe! hoe! who is heare?
I Robin of Doncaster and Margaret my feare.
That I spent I had,
That I gave I have,
That I left I lost. A.D. 1579.
A near relation to this may be found on a brass at Foulsham near Reepham in Norfolk, that reads:—
Of all I had, this only now I have,
Nyne akers wh unto ye poore I gave,
Richard Fenn who died March ye 6. 1565.
But now that I have got upon the attractive subject of epitaphs again, I must control my pen or I shall fill up pages unawares: already I find I have strayed far away from Lincolnshire.
