Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/208

 i^8 Additional Remarks on the ufed before in adding the fums total at the foot of each page, the firft inftance of which occurs in 1594. . " In the regifter of the election of Fellows into this college the Arabic numerals were introduced much earlier, viz. in 1539. " Of the other college accounts I have only to report that none have occurred wherein the Arabic numerals are ufed till within the laft fifty or feventy years, fo that my inquiries in this line are now at an end." Mr. North was of opinion that <f it is not an ufual thing, or in any degree probable, that men mould lofe the ufe of what ren- dered their calculations fo fhort and facile, which with the nu- meral letters could not but be tedious and operofe [//]." And yet we fee during how long a continuance the numeral letters main- tained their ground, notwithstanding the delay, the trouble, and the mi/lakes, that an adherence to them muft have occafioned. In the Hiftory of Dean Colet, (Appendix, p. 334) Mr. Knight fubjoins to a detail of the rents and profits of the eftate belonging to the founder of St. Paul's School this remark, which is equally appli- cable to many long accounts entered in Roman numerals : " The calling up of fums is not always exact in originals, and for thefe errors it is not difficult to affign an adequate reafon." From the uncertain era of the firft cafting up of pounds, Ihil- lings, and pence, in the now common figures to the clofe of the fixteenth century, it may be prefumed that in fo long an interval the citizens [*] and merchants of London muft have acquired no inconfidcrable knowledge of what John Dee terms the might of the. Arabic figures, efpecially after the circulation from the prefs of, [b~] Archaeolog. V. X. p. 363. 4- (h. 2.) See note after r at p. 3. [z] All the "Affixes of Bread" printed in the fixteenth century have the Roman numerals, and they were continued with the black letter through the feventeenth to 1714." R.G. fundry