8. Humboldt, in a paper which is translated in the _Journal of the Royal
Institution_, vol. xxix.
I believe a good many other references might be made, with little
trouble, to foreign Mémoires; and (perhaps still more to your
correspondent's apparent purpose) to some amongst the Mémoires that
relate to inscriptions and topography, rather that amongst those
relating directly to science or literature. However, the two parts of
the subject cannot be effectively studied separately from each other;
and I am not without a hope that these straggling notes may be of some
use to "E.V."
Under the view of inscriptions it occurs to my memory that in two or
three places on the church of St. Brelade in Jersey, there are marked
four vertical straight lines, which are interpreted by the natives to
signify the Arabic numerals 1111; as the date MCXI of the building of
the church. The church is evidently a very ancient one, and it is agreed
to be the oldest in the island, and the island historians assign it to
the early part of the 12th century. For these symbols being coeval with
the building I do not vouch: as (though it is difficult to say what may
constitute antiquity in the look of four parallel lines) I confess that
to my eye they had "as modern a look" as four such lines could well
have. The sudden illness of one of my party during our visit (1847),
however, precluded my examining that beautiful spot and its interesting
little church with the care I should have wished.
I may be allowed to suggest the necessity of some degree of caution in
discussing this question: especially not to assume that any Arabic
numerals which appear in ecclesiastical inscriptions are coeval with the
dates they express; but rather inquire whether, from the condition of
the stone bearing the inscription, these numbers may not have been put
there at a later period, during repairs and alterations of the building
itself. It is for many reasons improbable, rather than otherwise, that
the Arabic numerals should have been freely used (if used at all) on
_ecclesiastical structures_ till long after the Reformation: indeed they
are not so even yet.
But more. Even where there is authentic evidence of such symbols being
used in ecclesiastical inscriptions, the forms of them will tell
nothing. For generally in such cases an antique form of symbol would be
assumed, if it were the alteration of a "learned clerk;" or the
arabesque taste of the carver of the inscription would be displayed in
grotesque forms. We would rather look for genuine than coeval symbols of
this kind upon tombs and monuments, and the altar, than upon the
building itself; and these will furnish collateral proofs of the
genuineness of the entire inscriptions rather than any other class of
architectural remains. The evidence of the inscriptions on "Balks and
beams" in old manorial dwellings is especially to be suspected.