on a Barn In Kent, &c. 1-33

thefe figures in a work replete with numerals. This obfervation is equally pertinent to Regiftrum Temporale RofFenfe, a MS. com- piled chiefly under the direction of Hamo de Hethe, who was bilhop from 1319 to 1352. And may I not advance, without run- ning a rifque of its being difproved, that there is not in any epifco- pal or other eccleiiaftical office, a regifter of the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth century, whofe folios have contemporary marks in the vulgar figures ? This of courfe leads to an inquiry when thefe figures became general, either in arithmetical accounts or in denoting years and days ; and poffibly the refult of an investigation may be, that evi- dence pofitive will be wanting to prove any fuch early ufe of them as has been inadvertently conceived by fome perfons, and by others implicitly adopted. In my retired fituation I am not by any means prepared to purfue this inquiry far; but it will give me pleafure mould the queflions I mean to propofe, with not foreign furmifes and remarks, ferve as inuendos to guide others in the fearch, who may have opportunity to examine public libraries, or more copious private collections than are within my reach. On the imaginary era of the introduction of Arabian numerals into England the under- written verfes were quoted in the Gentle- man's Magazine of the year 1783 [y], from the Dreme of Chaucer, line 430, et feq. THE WEDDE. " Shortly it was fo full of beftes That though Argus the noble Qountour Yfate to rekin in his countour And rekin with M$ figures ten, For by thtjfigtires newe all ken, [y] Vol. LIII. p. 406. Rs If