Page:The Monumental Inscriptions in the Parish Church of S. Michael, Coventry.pdf/45

 The following translation is as literal as the florid Latin of that period will admit:

"Here lieth Astley, a Physician's Son, Under the tombstone of his ancestry; But never yet that ancestry produced A man so like to the divinity. Life, country, family, and nature's gifts, With the renowned profession of his sire, Have long endured and mourn his darksome death. Wherefore should tears then furrow with their rain; Our eyes moist fringes : while with holier heart He seeks the heavenly mansions of the blest? Why should he not with angels habit heaven, A celibate? For with Astroea's race We well may join him ? Now may Messue Keep silence, and Myrepsus haste to snatch The palm ; for first preferred, and 'mongst the poor Held as a father; still let Abraham's praise Live ever, though to day his name doth live, Worthy in marble, to stand charactered A golden name, a golden Abraham."

Near to the last is a brass, 26 by 22 inches, taken from a plain stone in the floor at the West End of the Church; it bears the following quaint inscription and arms, (plate 3):—

"Here lies the body of Captn. Gervase Scrope, of the family |of Scropes, of Bolton, in the county of York, who | departed this life the 26 of August, anno Dni, 1705, | aged 66."

"An Epitaph, written by himself, in the agony and dolorous paines of the gout, and dyed soon after.

"Here lyes an old toss'd Tennis Ball: Was racketted, from spring to fall, With so much heat and so much hast, Time's arm for shame grew tyred at last.