London No. 17

Allen (1839?) writes: "The inscription is ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ (Lord, wash my sin and not my face only,) it will be readily perceived that this Greek inscription reads either backward or forward. This monostich appear to have been adopted from the Greek church. It is, or was to be seen, on the font of the basiilica of St. Sophia at Constantinople. In this country its occurrence is frequent, in particular on the covers of the fonts at Dulwich College, and Worlingworth church Suffolk, a festive basin at Trinity College Cambridge, on the font at Harlow in Essex, and at Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, and in France on a marble benitier in the church of Notre Dame, and the fonts at St. Stephen d'Egres at Paris, and in that of St. Menin's Abbey near Orleans." The font is described in Brayley (1850): "The font is of variaegated marble, of an oval form, ornamented with flutings, and supported by a baluster column. It was presented, in 1729, by the Rev. James Hume, a North-Briton, and second feloow of the college, as appears from an inscription engraven around the basin [...] On the edge of the lid, or cover, which is of copper, gilt, in black letters, is the subjoined Greek anagram [...]". Listed in Cox & Harvey (1907) as a baptismal font ornamented with the Greek palindrome "ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ", which he translates as "Wash my sin and not my face only". A correction is to the location of the inscription *not on the font, but on the font cover* is given in the 10 April 1942 issue of Notes and Queries [http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/184/8/235-c.pdf] [accessed 14 October 2007]