in modern German "_der Seelen Infried wort_." To the German scholar the
two latter words only require explanation. _Infrid_ for Unfried,
discord, disturbance, any thing in opposition to Frieden or peace. The
Frid-stools at Beverley, Ripon, and Hexham, still bear the old theotise
stamp. _Wart_, or _ward_, may be either the past tense of _werden_, to
be (our was), or an old form of _währen_, to endure, to last: our
English _wear_ is the same word. The sense is pretty much the same in
both readings alluding to Eve. In the first:
(By her) the soul's disturbance came (was).
By the second:
(Through her) the soul's disturbance continues.
I may here observe that the words ICH WART are particularly distinct on
a helmet, pictured in the Journal of the British Archæological
Association, which the Secretary, Mr. Planche, in such matters the
highest authority, regards as a tilting helmet. It may there have been
in the original ICH WARTE, meaning I bide (my time).
But the centres and this inscription are the least difficulty. A second,
frequently met with, is by far more puzzling. I could not give your
readers any idea of it without a drawing: however it is found
imperfectly depicted on the plates I have before mentioned in Nash's
_Worcestershire_, and the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and I think I
recollect also a very rude copy in a volume of Hearne's _Miscellaneous
Works_, which I examined in the Gottingen Library, but whether belonging
to the work or a MS. addition I cannot now call to mind. The fanciful
and flowery form of its letters gives great scope to the imagination in
assigning them their particular position in the alphabet, and the
difficulty of reading them is enhanced by the doubts of German
archæologists whether they are initials or component parts of a
sentence. Herr Joseph v. Hammer Purgstall, however, in his version
RECORD DE SCI GNSI, or in full _Recordamini de sancta Gnosi_, deduces
thence his principal proof of Gnostic heresy amongst the calumniated
Templars, in which I am sorry to say he has been too servilely followed
in England: e.g. by Mr. Godfrey Higgins, in his posthumous _Anaclypsis_
(p. 830 note), as well as by E.G. Addison, _The Temple Church_ (p. 57),
and by Mr. R.W. Billings more especially, who tacks to his account of
this building an "Essay on the symbolical Evidences of the Temple
Church, where the Templars are proved Gnostic Idolators, as alleged by
Edward Clarkson, Esq." Had the learnedly hypothetic Austrian seen the
engravings of the Crypt at Canterbury Cathedral (_Archæologia_, viii. p.
74.), and Ledwick's remarks on it in conjunction with the carvings at
Glendalloch (_History of Ireland_, p. 174.), or those of Grymbald's
Crypt at Oxford, he might have been expected to have attributed their
monstrosities to his order, with as little hesitation and as thorough a
contempt of chronology, or proved connection, as he has the curious and
innocent sculptures of the church at Schöngrabern in Bohemia (vide
_Curiositäten_, vol. viii. p. 501.).
WILLIAM BELL, Phil. Dr.
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