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Gentleman's Magazine 1780 p.373
Mr. URBAN,
TO remove the perplexities in which your anonymous
correspondent, p.131, finds himself involved by the carving
and inscription at Bolton, you will please to inform him,
that there is nothing uncommon in the figures, either of the
men or horses, as represented in his friend's drawing,
admitting it to be a faithful one, which may perhaps be
doubted. If time has not made the figures ruder than the
carver or draughtsman formed them, he need go no further
then the famous tapestry of Bayeux for their parallels. He
will there find the same pointed helmets, oval shields,
indented banners, stirrups not growing out of the horses
bellies, but affixed to the saddle. The inscription is
composed of the same kind of letters. The crosses are
prefixed to it as in all of this and earlier as well as
later periods. In that at Kirkdale (Arch. V. p.188, Pl.IV.)
we see the cross at the beginning of different sentences,
and at the end of the whole. That the language of our
inscription is Saxon appears from the first letter Ð,
which probably is followed by a single expressing ER.
Lurren de may be luffende living:
weredun, ƿerðn, werdun, were.
dns Hugo miles de Boeltun.
ÐER LYFFENDE ÞEREDVN DNS HV. . MLES DE
BOELTVN.
This may be one sentence; and this conjecture may or may not
be right: but futher this deponent saith not, except that
the last two words of the remaining part resemble the two
first of the preceeding. Dr. Burn cannot help us out; for he
goes no further back than the time of Edward II. A corrector
copy might clear its own way: but the present may prove a
Gordian knot to T. Row or Maister Somerset.
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