on a Barn in Kent, &c. 137.

avoided, from an apprehenfion that there might be in innovation, the feeds of confufion. In the ledger books of merchants and tradefman at the end of the fifteenth, and the beginning of the fix- tccnth centuries, (mould there be any fuch remaining) items of re- ceipts and payments in the vulgar figures may be difcovered ; but I fomewhat queftion their being met with in any other MSS. Printing muft have accelerated the progrefs of Arabic numerals. By that excellent invention there would be an increafe of fcholars in arithmetic, and the knowledge of it attained with greater fa- cility. Nor could the compofitors of the prefs have had the fame prejudices againft thefe figures that the writers and tranfcribers of MSS. might entertain, becaule it might affect their livelihood. A curfory view of a proof meet, upon which w r ere imprefTed the fame fums of money in the common cyphers, and in Roman ca- pitals, would immediately fatisfy an impartial examiner which clafs w r as the more eligible. In the middle of the fixteenth century Robert Record, fellow of All Souls college in Oxford, and doctor of phyfic, publilhed his perfect Work and Practice of Arithmetic. It was dedicated to king Edw 7 ard the Vlth, and contained two dialogues between the mafter and fcholar, the former of them teaching the art and ufe of arith- metic with the pen, the fecond the accounting by counters. Of this book the firft edition in 8vo. was in 1540 ; the fecond in 8vo. with Augmentations, by John Dee, in 1590 ; and a third, in ismo. enlarged by John Mellis, in 1658, of which I have procured a copy. And as the dialogues are printed in black letter, it may be prefum- ed that all the numerals, whether letters or figures, corrcfpond with thofe characters in the original edition. Both Wallis and Ward mention their having feen in MSS. the Roman characters blended with Arabian figures ; and it lias been fhewn that there is the like mixture in infcriptions on monuments and coins. Record has given all his examples in common figures, VOL. XIII. T but