INSCRIBED STONE IN THE CHURCHYARD OF STOWFORD. 237 



and the regularity and care which has been displayed in their 

 formation, points plainly to the fact, that they are no chance 

 productions of a sculptor making trial of his tool, but the set 

 characters of an acknowledged system of caligraphy, carrying a 

 clear and distinct meaning to the people of a distant age. 



The small drawing which I made on the spot, a few weeks 

 ago, was not sufficiently correct to be worthy of a place in your 

 Journal ; but so very interesting did I consider the stone, that I 

 made an attempt to obtain a more correct one ; and through the 

 kindness of the Eev. W. W. Martyn, Eector of Lifton, have now 

 in my possession a rubbing, in which every letter is most clearly 

 and correctly delineated. The following is a copy of the inscrip- 

 tion, the letters averaging from 3 inches to 7 inches in height : — 



Whether this inscription belongs to the transition period 

 between the Koman and the early English letters, or whether 

 they are to be found among any of the ancient Irish alphabets, 

 and belong to a system, whose characters are well known to 

 the Anticjuary at the present day, I am not in a position to 

 say. The three last letters wQuld seem rather to point to the 

 former theory, and the four first to the latter ; that the first letter 

 on the left is repeated again in the fourth I think there is no 

 doubt ; and the similarity of the second, fifth, sixth, and seventh, 

 to Hebrew characters, led me at first to imagine that it was to that 

 language they must be referred ; but a more minute inspection 

 seems only to increase the difficulties of such a supposition, and 

 I therefore leave the task of deciphering them to the many 

 readers of our Journal, who are more competent to undertake it 

 than myself; and shall be quite content to have given them an 

 accurate representation, of what I think they will agree with me 

 in considering one' of the most remarkable of the Inscribed Stones 

 of Damnonia. 



