Between this inscription and the Helmdon date there is this difference, that in the latter the, numerals for the tens and smaller figure are placed at a distance from the other characters. There seems, however, to have been a studied conceit and quaintness in arranging the inscription, brief as it is. I cannot refer to any other inscription in which the word Domi is set before anno; and here it might be so placed under an opinion that the numerals for one year only would more aptly follow anno And it is well known that the learned in that age were pleased with such a jingle in the termination of words as would be occasioned by Millesimo, Quinquagesimo, Domini, Anno, tricesimo, tertio.
It was a rule laid dawn by Professor Ward that any coin, inscription, or manuscript, with a supposed date before the thirteenth century expressed in Arabic figures, may justly be suspected either not to be genuine, or not truly read, unless the antiquity of it be certain from other clear and undoubted circumstances, and that the date will bear no other reading; and if it be a copy, that it be taken with exactness. In support, therefore, of the doubts I have suggested on his mode of reading the Helmdon date, I shall by this rule be warranted to remark, that so far from the imputed antiquity of it being evident from other unquestionable circumstances, the form of the chimney-piece and its embellishments seem to betray an anachronism, by exhibiting marks of a later period than the thirteenth century.
Dr. Wallis observed that in one half of the front of the mantle-tree there is a dragon with wings, and on the other half three panels with the date. Three other panels having on them what he termed a flower, and a single panel that had two letters within an escutcheon. In my opinion there is besides on the dexter division one particular, though not noticed by him, far more likely, as it is there placed, to have occurred to a mechanic of the sixteenth thanof
