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of public BenefaCtors, to ereCt Statues and other 
Monuments of them, after they are dead it might 
be fo in this Cafe, and the Street receive its Name 
(for feme Time at leaft) from this Building; like our 
Ludgate-ftreet. But tho the precife Year of this 
Date can’t, I fear, now be determined with certain* 
ty ; it is fufficicnt to have lliewn, that neither the 
Order of the Characters, their Shape, ne t the oldeft 
Examples of Arabian or Indian Figures, any where 
found, do in the leaft countenance the Reading given 
ro it ; but, on the contrary, all of them afford the 
higheft Probability, that it can’t be genuine. 
I beg leave only to add, that two learned and in* 
genious Gentlemen of this Society, Roger Gale and 
James Weft Efquires, to whole Judgment I would 
pay a due Regard, were pleafed to tell me, they 
thought the two firft Characters, taken for a Nine 
and a Seven, might probably have been nothing but 
an 00 ; which will bring the Date to iooy, ten 
Years nearer the Time of Edgar. My only Diffi- 
culty as to that Reading is, that the 00 would then 
have two oblique Strokes prolonged from the Bot- 
tom, one in the Middle, befides the other ufual one 
towards the right Hand, which I do not remember 
ever to have met with. But as this Inacuracy might 
arife from the Obfcurity of the Chara&er, or the 
Imagination of its being two Arabian Figures; I 
leave it to the Curious to judge either way, as they 
pleafe, both Sentiments equally luppofing the ori- 
ginal Characters of this Date muft have been Ro- 
man Numerals. 
I ffiould 
