Helmdon Mantle Tree In/cnptton t &c. 145 obvious is the remark that Dr. Wallis muft have read the infcrip- tion with an eye prepared to view in it Arabic numerals that fhould ftrengthen his favourite hypothecs. And afterwards, he muft have trufted to memory for what he imagined he had feen ; for had he compared the drawing with the original, he could not have failed obferving that there was a flriking diffimilitude between them. After repeatedly inspecting the plates exhibited by Wallis and Ward, to me it appeared likely that they both looked for the cha- racter fpecifying the century in the wrong compartment, and Mr. Gough's fac fimile convinces me that I was not miftaken. It is not, as conceived by Wallis, a fmgle character in the firft panel, there being clearly three dutinct characters. All, I believe, will agree the firft of them to be designed for M, though it is an uncouth letter. As to the fecond, I can only fay that it is not more unlike 5 than the two figures in the third panel are unlike threes, and that the chifel feems to have beenufed in reverting inftead of inverting the lower extremities of thefe figures. Somewhat apt am I to think that the fecond character might be meant for 4, and this under a notion the artift might have, that as L was a cuftomary mark of fifty, by placing C a little way from the fummit of it, it would be underflood to fignify 500 ; this C, however, adds weight to my conjecture, that as M, the firft character is obvioufly the initial of mille, the thoufandth year, fo the fecond ought to be in- terpreted to denote the fucceeding centuries. Mr. Gough acknowledges himfelf to be puzzled how to make Anno Domini out of the fragments of the letters, though this would have been plain to him had not the wainfcot concealed the tops of them, as alfo the / and o that are vifible in the engravings. But I apprehend myfelf to be fully warranted in fuggefting that had it not been for the intermediate Do and Ann, it would not have been an eaiy tafk to have difcovered from fuch pot-hooks and hangers VOL. XIII. U whether
