14 INSCRIPTION ON THE FONT AT CHELMORTON. 



letter between the hilts was meant for a circle, it was not a 

 circle, instead of being angular ? The reason is perfectly 

 clear. From at least as early as A.D. 84c * down to long 

 subsequent to the date of this Font, our old Records and Deeds 

 had many of their letters formed Of longer or shorter straight 

 lines. In Sleigh's History of Leek, t the Charter of the 

 first Abbot of Deulacresse Abbey, about A.D. 12 15, is an 

 example, and I have twenty-four more records and deeds of 

 that Abbey written in a similar manner. Now in this inscription 

 every letter is formed by straight lines, and is similar to letters 

 to be seen in old deeds and records. A precisely similar S 

 occurs in the Abbey Deeds, and the identical e b I M in the 

 examples given in Wright's Court Hand Restored, and similar 

 figures of those letters in the Abbey Deeds, and O is constantly 

 written angularly, though generally with four lines only. The 

 figures on the Font, therefore, represents a circle, whether that 

 circle be the letter O, or an emblem, and it can represent 

 nothing else. No doubt the engraving was made from a copy, 

 which had been written by a monk, and possibly he may have 

 been of Deulacresse Abbey ; and even, if that copy had given a 

 circle, the engraver would probably make it angular on the Font, 

 to correspond with the other letters. The perfect circle is the 

 correct form of the letter ; for it is derived from the Phoenician 

 Ayin in its original form, which was circular. 



It was also suggested that the letter between the S and M 

 looked more like an 1 than an I in the engraving, but this was 

 due to its being too carefully finished by the engraver, and on the 

 Font itself it is undoubtedly an I. 



Charter of Cuthwulf, Bishop of Hereford, 30 Arch. J. 174. 

 t p. 12. 



