on a Bam in Kent, &c. 1 29

year [/]. And the fame learned author defcribes a groat of Henry the VHIth ftruck at Tournay in Flanders, that carries the date of the year 1513, when he was at that place [g]. From the books of our earlieft printer, Caxton, another evidence of the no common ufe of Arabic numerals may be deduced. As far as I can collect from Tanner's catalogue of them in Bibliotheca Britannica, and from Lewis's Life of Caxton, in not one of thefe volumes is the date of the year of publication noticed in the com- mon figures. It is alfo obfervable, that when the leaves are num- bered capital letters are ufed, as they are in the fignatures of the Iheets. The common figures which are printed in Lewis's Life of Caxton might warrant a fuppofition of their occurring in feveral parts of the books he has quoted ; but I rnuft own I am rather apt to fufpecl: that in this cafe, as well as in the epitaphs inferted in the Hiftories of Faverfham abbey and the Ifle of Tenet, he for his own convenience, when making the extracts, thus wrote them ; and I think it wiU be readily admitted that Caxton could not have found a want of many types (if any fuch he had) of Arabic nume* rals, becaufe they could fo rarely have occurred in the MSS. which were to pafs under his prefs. 7 blended with 8, and placed between the initials of his names, was Caxton' s device ; and fome have thought this cypher, as an abbreviation of 1 474, might be commemorative of the year when he began printing in England. But though Caxton's books are not dated with Arabic numerals, you inform me, on the authority of Ames, that Rhetorica Nova Gulielmi de Saona, one of the firft books printed at St. Alban's, has this impreffion I4A?. Refpedling the no general ufe of thefe figures in marking dates previous to the fixteenth centuryone more evidence mall be offered ; [/] A Table of English Silver Coins, p. 19. f^J Ibid. p. 24. VOL. XIII. S and