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 ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS high, vaulted at the top, with open-work between ribs representing birds and fishes among scrolls. At the base of each side, which measures 2j inches, are three round arches surmounted by a tympanum filled with a scale pattern, below which on one face is the inscription Thodric ME worh[te] : 'J'h{e)odric made me. From various points project heads of a grotesque character, while at each corner of the base are pierced lugs for the rods that connected the cover with the body of the censer. In the opinion of Mr. W. H. Stevenson there is practically nothing to go upon in determining the date from the lettering, beyond the fact that the pronoun is me and not mec. The latter form occurs on the jewel of Alfred, but me was also in use during his reign. Prof Earle in a recently published work. ^ states that mec was already an archaic form in the ninth century and is never found in the prose of the tenth. But considering that the mec form was naturally retained before a vowel, there was probably little difference in date between the famous Aelfred mec heht GEWYRCAN : Alfred ordered me to be made ; the inscription on a gold ring in the British Museum, Aethred mec ah Eanred mec agrof : Aethred owns me, Eanred engraved me ; and the Pershore example, which is of the same character. Further, to judge from the arcading round the censer, the tenth century would be a likely date. Though there is nothing in the ornament to show a religious use, it is not an unreasonable sup- position that this interesting relic of antiquity, which was found in a mass of gravel during excavations for a cellar near the middle of the town, once belonged to Pershore abbey, and may well have been lost at the destruction of that house by iElfliere about the year 976.^ 1 The Jlfred Jewel, pp. 17, 154. * "Journal of Anhceological Institute, xix. 238, note 9. 233