has never yet been decyphered, is engraved round the base. The same occurs at Worlingworth, Suffolk, whither the present l'ont and cover are said to have been removed from the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds. At Burgate, Lowestoft, Walsoken, and Kelling, Norfolk; Catterick, Yorkshire, St. Mary's, Beverley, and not a few other places, are similar examples. At Cockington, Devonshire, there is an inscription in brass letters on the upper chamfer of the bowl. The beauty and appropriateness of this kind of decoration no one will dispute. A legend, whether dedicatory or Scriptural, is a becoming way of conveying instruction or comme- morating an act of pious beneficence. No instance has come to our knowledge of the date of its erec- tion being sculptured on a Font, at least before the time of the Reformation, except that at Kis- ton, Lincolnshire, which has the date 1405. The following are examples of sculptured inscrip- tions on Fonts: Worlingworth, Orford, Suffolk; Kirton, Brianstone, Dorset; Bolton by Bowland, Yorkshire Newark, Nottinghamshire. Less appropriate, though not less frequently found in Fonts, especially of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, is heraldry. Blank shields indeed con- stantly occur, but only as panel or spandril orna- ments; but heraldic bearings, either sculptured or painted, (which plain shields may sometimes have. been,) are exceptions to the general practice. An instance of Early Decorated, if not Early English, • Given in Simpson's Baptismal Fonts. 4 St. Mary, Beverley.-Walsoken. 27
