_Tandem D. O. M._ (Vol. iii., p. 62.)--I would suggest that this
inscription might be resolved into
"Tandem Deus Otia Misit,"
a thanksgiving for the fulfilment of some oft-made prayer or long-cherished
hope; the idea--if I am right in my conjecture--having probably been taken
from the 6th line of Virgil's 1st Eclogue--
"O Melibaee! deus nobis haec otia fecit."
Any accounts that remain of the great Carthaginian Captain's Cornish
namesake, may perhaps tend to show that he had preferred the "otium cum
dignitate" of literary leisure to the turmoil of the battle of life, and to
the use of the _harness_, whether civil or military, that it had forced him
to wear.