The inscription on the tombstone of Christ. Burraway, in Martham Church, copied by your correspondent E. S. T., singular as it is, and startling as the story attached to it seems, is not without a parallel, for we have a similar inscription on another _mysterious mother_ of the name of Marulla in ancient times, which is given by Boxhornius in his _Monumenta Illustrium Virorum et Elogia_, Amst. 1638, fol. 112. He appears to have found it on a ruined sarcophagus at Rome, of which he has given representation, and in his Index thus refers to it: "Hersilus cum Marulla, quæ ei mater, soror, et sponsa fuit." Your correspondent has not mentioned the source of his explanation of the enigma: I presume it is traditional. The ancient inscription, it will be seen, solves it in the last two lines. The coincidence of these two inscriptions is not a little remarkable. "SENICAPRI QVICVMQVE SVBIS SACRARIA FAVNI HÆC LEGE ROMANA VERBA NOTATA MANV. HERSILVS HIC IACEO MECVM MARVLLA QVIESCIT QVÆ SOROR ET GENITRIX, QVÆ MIHI SPONSA FVIT VERA NEGAS, FRONTEMQVE TRAHIS: ENIYGMATA SPHYNGOS CREDIS, SVNT PYTHIO VERA MAGIS TRIPODE. ME PATER E NATA GENVIT, MIHI IVNGITVR ILLA, SIC SOROR ET CONIVNCX, SIC FVIT ILLA PARENS." In that entertaining volume _La Sylva Curiosa de Julian de Medrano, Cavallero Navarro_, first printed in 1583, and reprinted at Paris in 1608, a somewhat similar story is related, and the monumental inscription in French is given. Some of these stories must surely be apocryphal.[2] [Footnote 2: Stories of the same nature are told in the _Heptameron of the Queen of Navarre, 3me Journée, Nouvelle 30e_, where the scene is laid in Languedoc; and by Jeremy Taylor in his _Ductor Dubitantium_, B. i. C. iii. Sect. 3., who cites Comitolus as his authority: here the scene is laid in Venice. By others the scene has been placed in London, and also in Scotland. Horace Walpole's Postscript to his Tragedy will of course be known to most of your readers.]