ad_, book
xx. lines 69, 70.

UNEDA.

_Unpublished Epitaphs._--I copied the following two epitaphs from monuments
in the churchyard of Llangerrig, Montgomeryshire, last autumn. They perhaps
deserve printing from the slight resemblance they bear to that in Melrose
Churchyard, quoted in Vol. vii., pp. 676, 677.:

"O earth, O earth! observe this well--
That earth to earth shall come to dwell:
Then earth in earth shall close remain
Till earth from earth shall rise again."

"From earth my body first arose;
But here to earth again it goes.
I never desire to have it more,
To plague me as it did before."

P. H. FISHER.

_The Colour of Ink in Writings._--My attention was called to this subject
some years ago by an attempt made in a judicial proceeding to prove that
part of a paper produced was written at a different time than the rest,
because part differed from the rest in the shade of the ink. The following
conclusions have been the result of my observations upon the subject:

1. That if the ink of part of a writing is of a different shade, though of
the same colour, from that of the other parts, we cannot infer from that
circumstance alone that the writing was done at different times. Ink taken
from the top of an inkstand will be lighter than that from the bottom,
where the dregs are; the deeper the pen is dipped into the ink, the darker
the writing will be.

2. Writing performed with a pen that has been used before, will be darker
than that with a new pen; for the dry residuum of the old ink that is
encrusted on the used pen will mix with the new ink, and make it darker.
And for the same reason--

3. Writing with a pen previously used will be darker at first than it is
after the old deposit, having been mixed up with the new ink, is used up.

M. E.

Philadelphia.

_Literary Parallels._--Has it ever been noticed that the well-known
epitaph, sometimes assigned to Robin of Doncaster, sometimes to Edward
Courtenay, third Earl of Devon, and I believe to others besides: "What I
gave, that I have," &c., has been anticipated by, if not imitated from,
Martial, book v. epigr. 42., of which the last two lines are:

"Extra fortunam est, quicquid donatur amicis;
Quas dederis, solas semper habebis opes."

The English is so much more terse and sententious, besides involving a much
higher moral signification, that it may well be an original itself; but in
that case, the verbal coincidence is stri