[*] Another thing that makes me fix the date of this entry at the middle of the eighteenth century is that, curiously enough, I have an acting copy of “Hamlet,” written about 1740, in which these two lines are misquoted almost exactly in the same way, and I have little doubt but that the Vincey who wrote them on the potsherd heard them so misquoted at that date.  Of course, the lines really run:—­

     There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
     Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.—­L.  H. H.

And now there remained but one more document to be examined—­namely, the ancient black-letter transcription into mediaeval Latin of the uncial inscription on the sherd.  As will be seen, this translation was executed and subscribed in the year 1495, by a certain “learned man,” Edmundus de Prato (Edmund Pratt) by name, licentiate in Canon Law, of Exeter College, Oxford, who had actually been a pupil of Grocyn, the first scholar who taught Greek in England.[*] No doubt, on the fame of this new learning reaching his ears, the Vincey of the day, perhaps that same John de Vincey who years before had saved the relic from destruction and made the black-letter entry on the sherd in 1445, hurried off to Oxford to see if perchance it might avail to dissolve the secret of the mysterious inscription.  Nor was he disappointed, for the learned Edmundus was equal to the task.  Indeed his rendering is so excellent an example of mediaeval learning and latinity that, even at the risk of sating the learned reader with too many antiquities, I have made up my mind to give it in fac-simile, together with an expanded version for the benefit of those who find the contractions troublesome.  The translation has several peculiarities on which this is not the place to dwell, but I would in passing call the attention of scholars to the passage “duxerunt autem nos ad reginam advenaslasaniscoronantium,” which strikes me as a delightful rendering of the original, “{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON