shall devour,
  Insatiate pluck the fruit, and crop the flow’r;
  Shall glutton on the industrious peasants’ spoil,
  Rob without fear, and fatten without toil;
  Then o’er the world shall discord stretch her wings;
  Kings change their laws, and kingdoms change their kings. 
  The bear, enrag’d, th’ affrighted moon shall dread;
  The lilies o’er the vales triumphant spread;
  Nor shall the lion, wont of old to reign
  Despotick o’er the desolated plain,
  Henceforth th’ inviolable bloom invade,
  Or dare to murmur in the flow’ry glade;
  His tortur’d sons shall die before his face,
  While he lies melting in a lewd embrace;
  And, yet more strange! his veins a horse shall drain,
  Nor shall the passive coward once complain.

I make not the least doubt, but that this learned person has given us, as an antiquary, a true and uncontrovertible representation of the writer’s meaning; and, am sure, he can confirm it by innumerable quotations from the authors of the middle age, should he be publickly called upon by any man of eminent rank in the republick of letters; nor will he deny the world that satisfaction, provided the animadverter proceeds with that sobriety and modesty, with which it becomes every learned man to treat a subject of such importance.

Yet, with all proper deference to a name so justly celebrated, I will take the freedom of observing, that he has succeeded better as a scholar than a poet; having fallen below the strength, the conciseness, and, at the same time, below the perspicuity of his author.  I shall not point out the particular passages in which this disparity is remarkable, but content myself with saying, in general, that the criticisms, which there is room for on this translation, may be almost an incitement to some lawyer, studious of antiquity, to learn Latin.

The inscription, which I now proceed to consider, wants no arguments to prove its antiquity to those among the learned, who are versed in the writers of the darker ages, and know that the Latin poetry of those times was of a peculiar cast and air, not easy to be understood, and very difficult to be imitated; nor can it be conceived, that any man would lay out his abilities on a way of writing, which, though attained with much study, could gain him no reputation; and engrave his chimeras on a stone, to astonish posterity.

Its antiquity, therefore, is out of dispute; but how high a degree of antiquity is to be assigned it, there is more ground for inquiry than determination.  How early Latin rhymes made their appearance in the world, is yet undecided by the criticks.  Verses of this kind were called leonine; but whence they derived that appellation, the learned Camden [18] confesses himself ignorant; so that the style carries no certain marks of its age.  I shall only observe farther, on this head, that the characters are nearly of the same form with those on king Arthur’s coffin; but whether, from their similitude, we may venture to pronounce them of the same date, I must refer to the decision of better judges.