_Epitaph in Hall's Discovery_ (Vol. iii., p. 242.).--The work entitled
_Discovery of a New World, or a Description of the South Indies, hitherto
unknown, by an English Mercury, imprinted by E. Blount_, no date, 12mo., is
not, as our correspondent supposes, very rare, nor is it by Bishop Hall. It
is a free translation, or rather paraphrase, and an excellent one in its
way, by John Healey, of Bishop Hall's very entertaining _Mundus Alter et
Idem_, first published in 12mo., Francof., without date, afterwards
reprinted with Campanella's _Civitas Solis_ and Bacon's _Atlantis_ at
Utrecht, 1643, 24mo., and subsequently included in the edition of Bishop
Hall's works by Pratt, 10 vols., Lond., 1808, 8vo. The epitaph quoted is
not a satire upon any statesman of the time. The writer is describing the
Land of Changeableness, or, as it is called in the Latin original, "Variana
vel Moronia Mobilis," and gives in the course of his description this
epitaph on Andreas Vortunius (a vertendo), or, as he is styled in the
English {339} translation, "Andrew Turncoate." The epitaph occurs in p.
132. of the Latin edition of 1643, and is evidently, as indicated by the
marginal notes, an imitation or parody of the famous one on AEelia Laelia
Crispis, which has exercised the ingenuity of so many writers, and of which
our own countryman, Richard White, of Basingstoke, the historian, has given
three different interpretations. See his _AElia Laelia Crispis, Epitaphium
Antiquum quod in Agro Bononiensi adhuc videtur, a diversis interpretatum
varie, novissime autem a Richardo Vito explicatum_, Padua, 1568, 4to. An
article on this epitaph and its various interpreters, of whom I have
collected about forty, might be made a very interesting one.