by degrees from the delusion under which they labour, and to furnish them with some amusement, they may be supplied with proper instruments to measure the length, breadth, and depth, of the empty chests now in the said room, and thereby to ascertain how many thousand diminutive pieces of parchment, all eight inches and a half by four and a half, might have been contained in those chests; [according to my calculation, 1,464,578;—but I cannot pretend to be exact:] that for the sustenance of these gentlemen, a large peck loaf may be placed in a maund basket in the said room, having been previously prepared and left in a damp place, so as to become mouldy, and the words and figures Thomas Flour, Bristol, 1769, being first impressed in common letters on the upper crust of the said loaf, and on the under side thereof, in Gothick Characters, Thomas Wheateley, 1464 (which Thomas Wheateley Mr. Barrett, if he carefully examines Rowley's Purple Roll[1], will find was an auncyent baker, and “did use to bake daiely for Maister Canynge twelve manchettes of chete breade, and foure douzenne of marchpanes;” and which custom of impressing the names of bakers upon bread, I
- ↑ Rowley's Purple Roll, Mr. Bryant very gravely tells us, is yet extant in manuscript in his own hand-writing. “It is (he adds) in two parts; one of the said parts written by Thomas Rowley, and the other by Thomas Chatterton.”
