Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/187



T was observed by the late Dr. Johnson, that "of an art universally practised the first teacher is forgotten;" and strictly applicable to this general position is the declaration of Mr. North, that, "though next to the art of printing there is no invention of more extensive use than that of the numeral figures or cyphers, yet, when, where, and by whom they were invented, are questions never perhaps to be clearly answered . Despairing, therefore, of success in such an investigation, the inquiries I proposed were limited to periods when the vulgar figures of arithmetick were certainly known in England, and my humble attempt was, and is, to mark the very slow progress made for centuries in the use of these rudiments of a science, an ignorance in which is now deemed disreputable in those who have acquired other branches of a liberal education.

Respecting the time of the introduction of Arabic numerals into this country Dr. Wallis imagined that he had perceived traces of