3 JUNE 1899, Page 14

[To THE EDITOR OP TEE "SPECTATOR."] S111, — Will you allow me

to endorse the criticism of Mr. C. R• Haines on the advantages of Latin over English for memorial S - - inscriptions I think an even more striking instance than the epitaph on Gordon, which he gives, is to be found in that on the author of " The Anatomy of Melancholy," in- the Cathedral at Oxford, given below. It would be an interesting intellectual: exercise for your readers to try how near they could go to reproducing the epitaph in English. One feels inclined to pronounce the task impossible. I am acquainted with one scholar only who I think could even approach success. I wonder whether, should these lines meet his eye, the present Master of Trinity, Cambridge, would. oblige with

Pavcis notes pavcioribvs ignotvs tic lust Democritvs Ivnior evi vitam dedit et mortem melancolia."