CREDIDE "VOCE . PATER
RIT . ET . BAPTI NATUS . CORPORE
ZATVS . FVERIT FLAMEN . AVE.
SALVVS . ERIT." MAT. 3."

"CHRISTVM . IN "I . AM . THY . GOD
DVISTIS . QVOT AND . THE . GOD
QVOT . BAPTI OF . THY . SEEDE.
ZATI . ESTIS." GEN."

{483}

At Tilney, All Saints, Norfolk, is an inscribed font so similar to the one
last mentioned that they are probably the works of the same designer.

On the _cover_ of the font at Southacre, Norfolk, is this inscription:

"Orate p. aia. M[=r]i. Ri[=c]i. Gotts et d[=n]i Galfridi baker,
Rectoris huj' [eccl[=i]e qui hoc] opus fieri fece^t."

I may take the opportunity of adding two _pulpit_ inscriptions; one at
Utterby, Lincolnshire, on the sounding-board:

"Quoties conscendo animo contimesco."

The other at Swarby, in the same county:

"O God my Saviour be my sped,
To preach thy word, men's soulls to fed."

C. R. M.

* * * * *

IRISH RHYMES--ENGLISH PROVINCIALISMS--LOWLAND SCOTCH.

(Vol. vi., pp. 605, 606.)

MR. BEDE, who first called attention to a class of rhymes which he
denominated "Irish," seems to take it ill that I have dealt with his
observations as somewhat "hypercritical." I acknowledge the justness of his
criticism; but I did, and must still, demur to the propriety of calling
certain false rhymes peculiarly _Irish_, when I am able to produce similes
from poets of celebrity, who cannot stand excused by MR. BEDE'S
explanation, that the rhymes in question "made music for their Irish ear."
If, as he tells us, MR. BEDE was not "blind to similar imperfections in
English poets," I am yet to learn why he should fix on "Swift's Irishisms,"
and call those errors a national peculiarity, when he finds them so freely
scattered through the standard poetry of England?

Your correspondent J. H. T. suggests a new direction for inquiry on this
subject when he conjectures that the pronunciation now called _Irish_ was,
"during the first half of the eighteenth century, the received
pronunciation of the most correct speakers of the day;" and MR. BEDE
himself suggests that _provincialisms_ may sometimes modify the rhymes of
even so correct a versifier as Tennyson. I hope some of your contributors
will have "drunk so deep of the well of English undefiled" as to be
competent to address themselves to this point of inquiry. I cannot pretend
to do much, being but a sh