A Monumental Inscription.—Near the chancel door of the parish-church of Wath-upon-Dearne, in Yorkshire, is an upright slab inscribed to the memory of William Burroughs. After stating that he was of Masbro', gentleman, and that he died in the year 1722, the monument contains the two following hexameters:—
"Burgus in hoc tumulo nunc, Orthodoxus Itermus,
Deposuit cineres, animam revocabit Olympus."
The meaning of all which is obvious, except of the words "Orthodoxus Itermus:" and I should be glad to have this unscanning doggrel translated. It has been conjectured that Itermus must be derived from iter, and hence that Burroughs may have been a traveller, or possibly an orthodox itinerant preacher: surely there can be no punning reference to a journeyman! The lines have been submitted, in vain, to some high literati in Oxford.
A. G.
Ecclesfield.
Sir Thomas Herbert's Memoirs of Charles I. (Vol. iii., p. 157.).—My friend, who is in possession of the original MS. of this work, is desirous of ascertaining whether the volume published in 1702 be a complete and exact copy of it. I will transcribe the commencing and concluding passages of the MS., and shall be obliged if Mr. Bolton Corney will compare them with the book in his possession, and tell me the result.
"Sr,
"By your's of the 22d of August last, I find you have receaved my former letters of the first and thirteenth of May, 1678; and seeing 'tis your further desire," &c.
"This briefe narrative shall conclude with the king's owne excellent expression: Crowns and kingdoms are not so valuable as my honour and reputation—those must have a period with my life; but these survive to a glorious kind of immortality when I am dead and gone: a good name being the embalming of princes, and a sweet consecrating of them to an eternity of love and gratitude amongst posterity."
The present owner of the MS. has an idea that an incorrect copy was fraudulently obtained and published about 1813. Is there any foundation for this supposition?
Alfred Gatty.