LETTERS.—Fine lettering is the most perfect thing in the art of the Romans. For one thing, it was developed on a field where they were not obsessed with the idea of imitating Greek art; it was their very own, and it was swiftly carried to an apex of perfection in the first century A.D. It is a constant phenomenon on all the fields of Art that it is the first great flow of development which chiefly matters; all things of life and growth are like this, and, as I once heard a fine old Devonshire farmer say, “You can’t have two forenoons in one day.” The Romans, not the Greeks, had the forenoon of the day of their manner of lettering. This manner is clear, sharp, confident; it is like Greek art only in being free.

Early inscriptions had for the most part been cut on stone. Then from about 300 B.C. came a time of writing with a pen. Rome took this over from Alexandria and Pergamon, and these written characters became the foundation of a new style of monumental inscription. In pen-written characters the thick and thin strokes make themselves without there being any design in the matter. It seems equally natural in large clear writing to finish off the strokes with a thin touch of the pen to sharpen the forms. This procedure was taken over so exactly into inscriptions cut on stone that, for the most part, it seems these must first have been written on the stone with an implement like a wide brush and cut in afterwards by a mason. The chisel, like the pen, is thin and wide, and thus perfectly fitted to develop the habit of the pen. The cut letters were themselves usually finished by painting. Whoever wishes to design inscriptions must begin on the writing basis, and I should like to advise every student who may read these words to take up the practice of writing capital and small letters with single strokes of the pen, not “touching up” or “painting” the letters, and, above all, not “designing” them with high-waisted bars, swollen loops, little-headed S curves, and other horrors of ignorance and vulgarity, but learning once for all a central standard style. Half an hour a day for one week would teach much to any one who was ready to learn and did not want to do everything by genius.

We have in England a great number of fine Roman inscriptions, and it would be an excellent piece of work to gather a selection into an example-book of illustrations based on corrected rubbings. Even the inscriptions of London carefully studied would be subject-matter for a delightful and valuable essay.

1. The finest London inscription is that on a tomb front in the British Museum (Fig. 120). This must be a first-century work nearly contemporary with the famous inscription of the Trajan column. The letters are large, deep, clearly cut, and of quite perfect form. It is something of a puzzle that such an artist as the author of this tomb should have been working in London only a few years after the Claudian Conquest. The letters of this inscription are still wonderfully sharp; the thick strokes of the big letters are about an inch wide, and the “serifs” are light and free as the stroke of a pen. Notice especially the beautiful curve of S, the square touch at the apex of N and A, and the sharp little triangular division point after the second letter in the last line (Fig. 121. See also Figs. 66 and 67).

2. Another very fine inscription is on the tomb front of Valerius at Westminster Abbey. The letters are smaller, the stone is rather decayed on the surface, and it is not seen in a good light. The beauty of the lettering and spacing has consequently hardly been remarked. Here the lines are longer, and the letters seem to follow one another rhythmically, trippingly; it is an extraordinarily vivid and elegant piece of work, which, I think, should be dated in the second century A.D. The letters A M and N have cross touches at the apex of the angles, and the stops are little triangles as in the inscription before described. Here it can just be seen that lines were ruled (scored) on the stone as guides for ranging the letters (Figs. 119 and 122).

3. In the London Museum is a small tablet of white marble, which has similar lines, lettering and stops, and must be nearly of the same age. I give in Fig. 123 a very rough sketch of this excellent little slab. I have felt some doubt as to whether this was a London antiquity indeed, but the many resemblances to other inscriptions have fully convinced me that it is.

4. At the Guildhall there is another small slab, having only a few letters, but these of fine early style (Fig. 124). Both these little tablets and others probably were set on the wall of some burial chamber of the Columbarium type.

5. Another inscription of much the same character, but in smaller letters, is that on the hexagonal pedestal in the Guildhall Museum, of which a sketch was given in an earlier part. This provides an example of a group of tied letters (Fig. 125). The writers of Roman inscriptions allowed themselves much freedom in contracting words, in setting a small letter within a big one, as in Fig. 119, and in combining two or three letters together. In Fig. 126 I have noted one or two other examples not all from London.

6. In a fragment of inscription from Greenwich Park at the British Museum, the letters were much compressed, and many of them were linked together (Fig. 127).

It is difficult to draw out any general rules of form and spacing; generally o and c were very round in form, N of square proportion, and M wider than a square. The round letters were usually thickened, not where the curves would touch vertical tangents, but a little under and over, just as is natural in writing the letters. The loops of D and R do not become horizontal at top and bottom, but bend freely. A, N and M usually have square terminations at the upper angles. Initial letters are not larger than the rest.

One or two examples of rapid cursive writing have been preserved on bricks and tiles. Fig. 128 gives some letters of interesting form from a tile at the Guildhall. The A, G and M are on the way to be transformed into—a, g and m; apparently the hook of the “a” had its origin in the overlapping termination at the apex in the monumental inscriptions. Fig. 129 is from a still more rapid scribble; L, T and E here approach our modern handwriting forms. These examples are enough to show how the more cursive writing styles and our own handwriting have been developed from the Roman capitals.

Roman books and correspondence were written in such hands, and Dr. Haverfield has pointed out, as such scribblings on tiles were obviously in many cases by labourers in the brickfields, it follows that the common people in British towns had come to talk Latin. Dr. Haverfield went on to question whether town workmen even spoke Celtic. “Had they known Celtic well, it is hardly credible that they should not have sometimes written in that language. No such scrawl has been found in Britain. This total absence of Celtic cannot be mere accident” (Romanization). This argument overlooks a probability that Latin was a written language, while Celtic was not. We hardly realise our direct and full classical inheritance, and the fact that Londinium was a Roman city for three and a half centuries. Here the Latin Pantheon must have been completely absorbed into the common texture of traditional thought; here boys would have carried texts of Virgil in their satchels, and here, again, the story of the Gospel must have been brought in its first westward expansion.

Inscriptions.—In the notes which follow, I am more than ever off my proper ground, and, moreover, they are likely to be very dreary to any one who does not feel the romance of early London and Britain through all the dryasdust detail in which we have to work.

An important inscription was found in 1850 under St. Nicholas Lane. It was described in the same year (Gent. Mag. xi. p. 104): “A large slab with the following Roman inscription in well-cut letters 5 in. or 6 in. in length:

It is doubtful if the fourth letter in the first line be C or O. The stone is in fine preservation, and others ought to have been discovered, but the excavators were not permitted to turn either to the right or to the left, notwithstanding a gentleman offered to pay any expense.” This must have been Roach Smith, who, as the practical repetition of the phrases given below shows, must have been the author of the note. An MS. letter, which is in my possession, is as follows:

“My dear Fairholt,—I have given Richards £10 for you.... In the Guildhall is a fragment of a large inscription from Nicholas Lane which we should give rather large. It lay just within the lower door of the Library. The letters are deeply cut and should be shown clear. Can you see if the stone be broken? [Sketch.] Note if letter 4, line 1, be a C, and please measure it. It is most important. I suppose it is half the original length.—Yours sincerely,

The stone had disappeared and has never been heard of since. The size was recorded by Birch as 2 ft. 4 in. high, and 3 ft. wide on the face. V.C.H. says 6 ft. long, but this is a mistake. Fortunately a careful drawing of the stone was made by Archer, which is preserved in the British Museum (Fig. 130). Archer’s drawing confirms Roach Smith’s reading of C at the end of the first line next a vertical joint. My sketch by Roach Smith seems to be the only other record (Fig. 131). In Illustrations of Roman London, he says: “It was found close to a wall, and there is reason to think other stones having the remainder of the inscription were not far off from the one excavated. In the present year (1859), being desirous to compare it with my sketch, I ascertained it was not to be found. The stone was between 2 and 3 ft. in length. The fourth letter in the first line appeared to me when I made the sketch more like a C (which I considered it to be) than it seems to be in the woodcut. From the magnitude of the stone and the character of the letters it is clear that the inscription surmounted the entrance of some public edifice, apparently a temple. It is probably the commencement of a dedication which occupied two or four stones. The wider distance from the top than of the third line from the bottom weighs in favour of the belief that we have only the first quarter. There can be no doubt that NVM should read Numini, and that PROV BRITA should be read Provincia Britannia; the supposed equal length of the second stone and the number of letters required, render this reading obvious. Seneca and Tacitus concur as to a temple having been erected in Britain to the Emperor Claudius; the latter locates it at Camuludunum. This temple was probably erected soon after the subjugation of the Trinobantes. It may be readily conceived that Londinium possessed some edifice dedicated to that emperor. Although it is impossible to decide positively, we cannot avoid associating the historical evidence with an inscription which must have been of an early period, of a rare class, and almost unique in this country.” This idea that there were formerly four stones is now much strengthened by the fact that a curiously similar temple dedication is illustrated by Espèrandieu (iv. p. 126) from D’Yzeures. This inscription begins Numinibus Augustorum and is on four equal stones with joints meeting at the centre, thus +. Hübner (C.I.L. vii. No. 22) gives the boundary to the right of the London stone as a fracture, and restored the inscription with Num. Caes. et Genio in the top line. It is at once apparent that this would not space out properly with the single words of second and third lines. Haverfield leaves out Genio and reads, “To the Divinity of the Emperor and to the Province of Britain.” This, I suppose, might be possible in a contracted inscription, but I am drawn back to Roach Smith’s view, and would venture to suggest the possibility of some such restoration as:

I am ignorant whether it would be possible to have a dedication from the Province of Britain to Claudius in such a form, but if so it would be a record of great significance. The fourth letter was certainly C, because an O would not have avoided the joint. The letters in the top line were about 6 in. high, and the whole was of fine style. As Hübner says, it is doubtless of the first century. It was certainly affixed to a temple dedicated to an Emperor-divinity. The complete inscription probably occupied four stones.

2. Several brick inscriptions are of special interest, as most of them contain the name London. There are two varieties: (a) P.PR.BR. in a label; and (b) P.P.BR.LON (Figs. 132 and 133). The former (a) has large letters, and they are enclosed in a tablet: it seems of earlier style than the other. Wright says of the second: “The most probable interpretation is Proprætor Britanniæ Londinii; this has a peculiar interest as showing that London was the seat of government of the province.” When Wright wrote only a roof tile of variety (a) seems to have been known, but now there are several plain tiles at the Guildhall and one at the British Museum which have the same mark. All these are alike in having four notches in their long edges, and one flat side of each is scored over with lines to give better hold for plastering. It seems that these tiles must have been used for lining walls, nails being driven in at the notches; their size is 16 in. by 11 in.

The explanation of Hübner adopted in the new British Museum Guide is that P. in (a) and (b) both “represent the publicani who farmed the taxes (the ‘publicans’ of the Gospels) of the province of Britain in London.”

Nothing is so expert a matter as Latin inscriptions, and it would be absurd for one who is entirely ignorant to pretend to a difference of opinion. I may, however, venture to point out that Hübner himself does not seem very certain, and that the difference of the two forms seems to coincide with the historical fact that earlier Britain was one province and that later it was subdivided. Variety (a), I have little doubt, is a second-century inscription (similar labels are found on pigs of lead of the time); while form (b) is quite late (probably end of fourth century). The first variety I should like to suggest represents the governor of the undivided province, and the second the subdivided province with its centre at London. If I am not entirely outside the possibilities of the case there is some confirmation of Wright’s view in the fact that other tiles bear the stamps of high authorities; thus a tile at Silchester has the name of the Emperor Nero in a circle, and other tiles are known stamped with the marks of army and navy commands.

3. At the British Museum is a silver ingot (found on the site of the Tower of London), stamped with an inscription given as

and described thus: “Ex Of[ficina] Fl[avii ?] Honorini: found with gold coins of the Emperors Arcadius and Honorius.” The reading FL at the end of the first line is probably adopted because the Emperor Honorius had also the name Flavius; but to my eyes the letters look more like FE. Other similar marks on silver show that we need not expect an emperor’s name. (One in the British Museum reads EX OF PATRICI.) Roach Smith read the London inscription, EX OFFI, and explained the whole “From the workshop of Honorinus.” I may suggest Felix Honorinus.

4. Lying in the grass in front of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, is a large white stone, bearing only T II in what appears to be Roman work and style. It was found near its present site about forty years ago, and was accepted as Roman and explained as a boundary (terminus) mark. It may be noted that it lies close to the line of the presumed Roman road along Tothill Street to the river. The nearest parallel I have seen is a stone found near Falkirk, described in Haverfield’s addition to the C.I.L. (No. 1264): T III (turma tertia).

5. An inscription at the Guildhall

is, as has been pointed out, a record of the restoration of some edifice or sculpture dedicated to the mother goddesses. The lettering is on the half of the crowning member of a cornice which may have been over a narrow door, and Roach Smith was probably right in assuming the existence of a small temple.

6. A sketch of the inscription found on a mosaic floor near Pudding Lane is preserved at the Society of Antiquaries: it has indications not brought out by printing it in type, and an expert could probably gather more from it than has been made out.

7. The sarcophagus from Clapton at the Guildhall has a much-defaced inscription on the front panel ending apparently, as the catalogue says, with the name MARITIMIVS. Here, again, it is possible that careful examination by experts would bring out further facts.

These inadequate, indeed incompetent, notes on a few selected inscriptions are at least enough to show that the inscriptions of Londinium are worth the attention of properly equipped scholars. A carefully illustrated account of them might be made interesting to all intelligent citizens and help them to get really into their minds an idea of the Roman age in London.