Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/217

Rh improvement of the sons of citizens of a trading metropolis, both entrusted to the charge and government of societies of merchants, and one of them founded by a mercantile company, not any care was taken that the boys should be put in the road to so necessary an acquisition; and, as I have understood, no provision for arithmetical knowledge was made in the original establishments of St. Paul's and Merchant Taylors' Schools.

In endeavouring to supply so great an omission Record was entitled to a considerable degree of merit; for though, as he confessed, "his Ground of Artes might be of small aid to the learned sort, it might be to the simple and the ignorant which needeth most, a good furtherance and mean to knowledge." Nor ought his co-adjutor, John Dee, to be passed by without his share of credit. To an improved edition of Dr. Record's book the reputed conjurer prefixed these stanzas:

And to the title page of a former edition, as it is believed, was