avail himself of hints thrown out in so friendly a disposition, there can be no doubt; but in the letter of your correspondent T. R. (p. 353) there is a passage which bears so directly on the character of poor Goldsmith for veracity and integrity, that I cannot suffer a month to pass by without an endeavour to explain the apparent discrepancy there referred to. But to do so, I must first quote the passage from J. R.'s letter: "In volume I. p. 181, it is said, 'It would appear he (Goldsmith) had the honour of an introduction to Voltaire at Paris. Two allusions are made to this honour; one in the Public Ledger; another, in an account of his (Voltaire's) life.' In the latter, Goldsmith says, (as quoted page 182,) The person who writes this memoir (of Voltaire), who had the honour and pleasure of being his acquaint ance, remembers to have seen him in a select company of wits, of both sexes, in Paris, when the subject happened to turn on English taste and learning. Fontenelle, who was of the party, began to revile both. Diderot attempted to vindicate their poetry and learning, but with unequal abilities. Fontenelle continued his triumph, till about 12 o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last roused from his reverie; his harangue lasted three hours. I never was so much charmed, nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory as he gained in the dispute.' Now, Goldsmith, according to Mr. Prior, and the fact is incontestible, never was in Paris until 1754 or 1755; and it is equally certain that Voltaire left that capital for Berlin in 1750, and never returned to it until 1778 (February), in the month of May of which year he died there; so that it was impossible he could have been seen there by Goldsmith in 1754 or 1755. His state ment, therefore, is difficult of explanation. Nor is it less so in regard to Fontenelle, who, in 1754 or 1755, when Goldsmith was in Paris, was in the ninety-eighth or ninety-ninth year of his age-a period of life wholly incompatible with the story. Fontenelle was born in February 1657, and, independently of his great age, had long been obliged to relinquish society from utter deafness. How Mr. Prior will reconcile these obvious discrepancies I am at a loss to conjecture." Now, Sir, by a reference to the Life of Voltaire, in Mr. Murray's new and enlarged edition of Goldsmith's Miscellaneous Works, it will be seen, that the Memoir was a hasty compilation, or rather translation, which occupied poor Oliver only four weeks, and for doing which he was to be paid twenty pounds. It brings down the Life of Voltaire only to the period of his departure from the court of Berlin in 1750. When, therefore, Goldsmith says, "the person who writes this Memoir had the honour and pleasure of being his acquaintance," he cannot refer to himself, who had only a casual introduction to Voltaire, but to the ori ginal writer of the Memoir, which he was translating. With regard to the other "obvious discrepancy," if your correspondent had turned to the clever essay, "6 On Abuse of our Enemies," one of the many for which we are indebted to the unwearied industry of Mr. Prior, he will find that Goldsmith says not one syllable about his introduction to Voltaire at Paris. His words are (vol. i. p. 328), "I remember to have heard M. Voltaire observe, in a large company at his house at Monrion, that at the battle of Dettingen, the English exhibited prodigies of valour; but they soon lessened their wellbought conquest, by lessening the merit of those they conquered." I hardly need say, that Voltaire's house at Monrion was near Lausanne, in Switzerland, and that Goldsmith's arrival in that country from Italy was in the May of that very year: "turn we to survey, Where rougher climes a nobler race displayWhere the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread, And force a churlish soil for scanty bread: No product here the barren hills affordBut man and steel, the soldier and his sword; No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, But Winter lingering chills the lap of May." GENT. MAG, VOL. VII. Yours, &c. A. B. 4 F ROMAN SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS FOUND NEAR CIRENCESTER. (With a Plate.) Mr. URBAN, London, April 17. IT becomes my agreeable duty to thank you for your kindness, in having procured for me copies of the very interesting sepulchral monuments found at Watermore near Cirencester in 1835 and 1836; and I beg to avail myself of the opportunity to send you a few remarks, which may not perhaps be considered unfit to accompany the engravings of the same, which I hear you intend publishing in your valuable Magazine. Though the inscription upon the first of these monuments has been given in the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1835, page 303, it will be as well to repeat it here, because some alteration in the interpretation of it offered by your Correspondent will, perhaps, on inquiry, appear desirable. Monument I. DANNICVS. EQES. ALAE STIP. XVI. CIVES. RAVR CVR. FYLVIVS. NATALIS. IL "Dannicus, eques Alæ Indianæ, turma Albani, Stipendiorum sedecim, civis Rauricus; curaverunt Fulvius Natalis il [leg. et ?] Flavius Bitucus, heredes testamentarii. Hic situs est.”—i. e. Dannicus, a horseman of the Indian wing, of the troop of Albanus, who had served sixteen years; a citizen of Rauricum. By the care of Fulvius Natalis and Fulvius Bitucus, the heirs of his last will. He is buried here." I read Dannicus instead of Decius Annicus, because it appears from inscriptions, that the Gauls generally had but one name; even under the dominion of the Romans. We have an instance of it in the 3rd of the Watermore Inscriptions, where mention is made of Philus the son of Cassavus. The name of Dannicus, as far as I have been able to ascertain, is not found on any other monument; but we know those of C. Dannicus, of Dannicius Alpinus, of Danius Minuso, and that of Dannus, the son of Marus; this last occurs on a monument found at Nismes in France. The ala Indiana (Indian wing) does not seem to be mentioned on any other monument found in England, but it occurs in inscriptions found near Cologne, at Maintz, and near Manheim; which would lead to the inference, that this division of the Roman auxiliaries was stationed some time in Gallia, and apparently went over to England, to take part in the expedi tions of the Romans into that island. The existence of the turma Albani of the Indian wing, recorded by this monument, was not hitherto known; another, viz. the turma Balbi, is mentioned on the inscription found near Cologne. Monument II. "Sextus Valerius Genialis, eques alae Thracum (or Thracum Herculaniae ?), civis Frisiaus (for Frisius), turmae Genialis. Annos (vixit) quadraginta, (militavit) viginti. Hic situs est, heres fieri curavit.”—i. e. "Sextus Valerius Genialis, a horseman of the Thracian wing, a citizen of Frisia, of the troop (or the squa. dron) of Genialis. (He lived) forty years, (and served) twenty. He is buried here (and) his heir erected this (monument)." The propriety of most of the corrections I have here ventured to introduce, will be readily admitted; but the conclusion of the third line is not so certain. The ala III Thracum occurs on different inscriptions, and one of them even mentions the name of a Valerius, who was a native of Gallia, and a commander of that wing; but it was stationed in Syria, and all the monuments relating to it were discovered in the southern parts of Europe. The ala Thracum Herculania is known from an inscription on the base of a statue found at Vaisons in France, and certainly the six last letters of the third line of the inscription before us, would allow the correction THR. HERC; but the circumstance of another sepulchral monument having been found in Shropshire (see Camden's Britannia 11. p. 413), where mention is made of a horseman of the Cohors Thracum, induces me to read here also EQ(u)ES ALAE. THRAC(um). The deceased, Sextus Valerius Genialis, was a native of Friesland; and it is rendered probable by this inscription, that some soldiers of that nation served among the auxiliary troops which followed the Romans into Britain; without, however, constituting a separate part of the army, like their neighbours the Batavi, and the Tungri; for the cohorts of those nations are mentioned by Tacitus (Hist. iv. 12, and Agric. cap. 36,) as having contributed more than any other part of the Roman army, to one of the most important victories gained by Agricola; and a great number of inscriptions found in different parts of Great Britain, but chiefly in Cumberland and Northumberland, prove the assertion of Tacitus to be true. As far as I have been able to ascertain, none of the ancient authors record the fact of the Frisians having served in the Roman army in England. From the other sepulchral inscriptions of individuals of the same nation, found in Italy, we learn that they were selected by the Emperor Nero and his successors, to serve as the Imperial private body-guard. Lysons, in his Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae 1. pl. x11., has published a fragment of an altar found at Binchester, in the Bishoprick of Durham, on which we read, "that Amandus, a citizen of Frisia, EX . c(ivitate) FRIS (iorum) discharged his vow to Vinovia," the personification, and ancient name of the place where the monument was erected; but there is no proof that this Amandus belonged to the Roman army. Besides the monuments spoken of in the Gentleman's Magazine (for Sept. 1835, page 303), we may mention another, published by Camden, "Philus Cassavi filius, civis Sequanus, (vixit) annos quadraginta quinque. Hic situs est.”—i. e. "Philus the son of Cassavus, a citizen of the Sequani, five and forty years old, is buried here." The deceased was probably one of the negotiatores, or merchants, who followed the Roman army, and established themselves in their camps and other military stations: either for the purpose of supplying the soldiers with provisions and other necessaries, or of taking advantage of the more constant and easy communication opened at every military establishment, which at the same time might be regarded in the light of an extensive market. The Sequani were the neighbours of the Rauraci, and lived in the environs of Lyons, in France, as is proved by different inscriptions found near that place, and at St. Pierre Mont-Jou, in Switzerland; but above all, by one published by Gruter, in his Corp. Inscr. pag. DCXLIX. 7. in which occurs the name of Julius Poppilius, the Sequanian, a citizen of Lugdunum or Lyons. The discovery of the three Watermore inscriptions, the great number of antiquities and remains of Roman buildings found before in the same neighbourhood, and the circumstance that different Roman roads meet in the same spot, prove it to be the ancient Corinium or Duroconovium, which seems to have been a place of considerable importance during the period when the Romans were settled in this island, and it is therefore to be expected, that more interesting monuments remain to be discovered in the vicinity. I hope that if this is the |