At Gaywood, Norfolk, is a font of Gothic design, lust probably of post-Reformation date. On four of the eight sides of the bowl are these inscriptions:
"QVI . CREDIDE "VOCE . PATER RIT . ET . BAPTI NATUS . CORPORE ZATVS . FVERIT FLAMEN . AVE. SALVVS . ERIT." MAT. 3."
"CHRISTVM . IN "I . AM . THY . GOD DVISTIS . QVOT AND . THE . GOD QVOT . BAPTI OF . THY . SEEDE. ZATI . ESTIS." GEN."
At Tilney, All Saints, Norfolk, is an inscribed font so similar to the one last mentioned that they are probably the works of the same designer.
On the _cover_ of the font at Southacre, Norfolk, is this inscription:
"Orate p. aia. M[=r]i. Ri[=c]i. Gotts et d[=n]i Galfridi baker, Rectoris huj' [eccl[=i]e qui hoc] opus fieri fece^t."
I may take the opportunity of adding two _pulpit_ inscriptions; one at Utterby, Lincolnshire, on the sounding-board:
"O God my Saviour be my sped, To preach thy word, men's soulls to fed."
IRISH RHYMES--ENGLISH PROVINCIALISMS--LOWLAND SCOTCH.
MR. BEDE, who first called attention to a class of rhymes which he denominated "Irish," seems to take it ill that I have dealt with his observations as somewhat "hypercritical." I acknowledge the justness of his criticism; but I did, and must still, demur to the propriety of calling certain false rhymes peculiarly _Irish_, when I am able to produce similes from poets of celebrity, who cannot stand excused by MR. BEDE'S explanation, that the rhymes in question "made music for their Irish ear." If, as he tells us, MR. BEDE was not "blind to similar imperfections in English poets," I am yet to learn why he should fix on "Swift's Irishisms," and call those errors a national peculiarity, when he finds them so freely scattered through the standard poetry of England?
Your correspondent J. H. T. suggests a new direction for inquiry on this subject when he conjectures that the pronunciation now called _Irish_ was, "during the first half of the eighteenth century, the received pronunciation of the most correct speakers of the day;" and MR. BEDE himself suggests that _provincialisms_ may sometimes modify the rhymes of even so correct a versifier as Tennyson. I hope some of your contributors will have "drunk so deep of the well of English undefiled" as to be competent to address themselves to this point of inquiry. I cannot pretend to do much, being but a shallow philologist; yet, since I received your last Number, I have lighted on a passage in that volume of "omnifarious information" Croker's _Boswell_, which will not be deemed inapplicable.