Churchmouse: Stragglethorpe, Lincolnshire.

Inside is a hanging wall monument, a memorial to Richard Earle (or Ricardus Earle) who died in 1697. It was made by Thomas Green of Camberwell and is made of various marbles, taking the form of a wall plaque with a plinth, sat upon which are two busts and a cherub with a skull.

Inscription on the Earle Monument (below). Incidentally, two copies of this inscription are known. One here in St. Michaels, and one on a completely different memorial at a church in Twyford(?), Berkshire.

The inscription reads as follows:

Stay, Reader and observe Deaths partial doom
A spreading Virtue in a narrow Tomb,
A generous Mind mingled with common Dust;
Like Burnishd Steel cover'd and left in Rust.
Dark in the Earth he lies, in whom did Shine
All the Divided Merits of his Line,
The Lustre of his Name seems faded here,
No fairer Star in all that fruitfull Sphere.
In Piety and Parts extremely Bright;
Clear was his Youth, and filled with Crowning light
A morn that promised much Yet saw no Noon
None ever Rose so fair, an Set so soon
All lines of Worth were Centred here in One,
Yet see, he lies in Shades, whose Life had none,
But while the Mother this sad Structure Rears,
A double Dissolution there Appears;
He into Dust dissolves, She into Tears

Picture of the Earle monument, Church of St. Michael, Stragglethorpe, Lincolnshire. Photograph: Peter Fairweather.

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Richardus Earle Bar.nt Obyt
Decimo Tertio Die Augufti
Anno Dom 1697 Aetatis Suae 24

Right: This cherub sat on the plinth of this memorial between the two busts when these photographs were take in 1988. It has since been removed and its whereabouts is unknown.

Church of Saint Michael, Stragglethorpe, near Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire.

The Earle Monument