The readings of some of your correspondents who understand German is
pretty near the truth. {136} I have before said that the centre type of
Eve's Temptation is the most common, and to it the words especially
refer, and seem at the place of their manufacture (most probably
Nuremburg) to have been used for other centres without any regard to its
fitness. The letters, as I can safely aver from some very perfect
specimens, are

DER SELEN INFRID WART;

in modern German "_der Seelen Infried wort_." To the German scholar the
two latter words only require explanation. _Infrid_ for Unfried,
discord, disturbance, any thing in opposition to Frieden or peace. The
Frid-stools at Beverley, Ripon, and Hexham, still bear the old theotise
stamp. _Wart_, or _ward_, may be either the past tense of _werden_, to
be (our was), or an old form of _währen_, to endure, to last: our
English _wear_ is the same word. The sense is pretty much the same in
both readings alluding to Eve. In the first:

(By her) the soul's disturbance came (was).

By the second:

(Through her) the soul's disturbance continues.

I may here observe that the words ICH WART are particularly distinct on
a helmet, pictured in the Journal of the British Archæological
Association, which the Secretary, Mr. Planche, in such matters the
highest authority, regards as a tilting helmet. It may there have been
in the original ICH WARTE, meaning I bide (my time).