Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/330

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Walks in the Black Country

Lane and his lady, who died in 1582, or thirty-seven years before Colonel John, the hero of Charles II, was born. So he was probably their grandson. His monument is a very elaborate piece of sculpture; indeed. I do not remember one in which so many devices and symbols are grouped and wrought with such minuteness. The various parts of body armour, and all the tools known to war, ancient and modern, are done to life in the marble. Then Charles's Oak at Boscobel, with a trooper's horse at full gallop under the leafy branches, are well carved. Indeed, a number of passages in his experience in this vicinity are carved in the monument, so that both by illustration and written narrative, a record of that uncrowned and recrowned sovereign is here graven in characters more lasting than the memory of his dubious virtues; even if he had any worth remembering in the present day. The tall, broad tablet, headed and bordered by all these symbols of Mars and martial history, bears a long inscription in Latin, which is an eloquent tribute to his worth, and a very expressive production withal. I do not know if a translation of it into English has ever been published, so I subjoin the following, which is rather literal, with the exception of the word exuviæ, which contains a meaning that would be too inelegant, even for so grave a subject, if given in full; for it would