124 Examination of an Infer iption

If they be crafty, rekin and nombre And tell of every thing the nombre, Yet ihullde fail to rekin even The wonders we met in my fweven. By another correfpondent in the fame mifcellany _z thefe lines were not thought to afford any elucidation of the fubjec~l, and the perfon who appealed to them was certainly incorrect in his tranf- cript. Admitting, however, THE FIGURES NEWE to imply that they were not known long before Chaucer compofed this Dreme, the queftion is not improper, whether for more than a cen- tury afterwards there are any traces of reckoning and numbering with figures TEN by any Englifh Argus, who was a crafty and pro- feiTed countour ; and therefore my firft article of inquiry fhall be, Where is to be feen the oldeft original MS. public or private, of a pe- cuniary account in which all the fums received and difburfed are entered in Arabic figures ? From what I can recollect of Madox's Hiftory of the Exchequer, (a book which I have it not in my power to confult) we ihall fearch in vain for any fuch ancient ftatemcnt in any department in that office. Clear is it from the wardrobe account of king Edward the Ift, publifhed by the Society of Antiquaries, that all the fums are fpecified in Roman characters ; and I have underftood that in the like accounts of feveral lucceeding princes there is not an Ara- bic figure to be feen. Turn we then to the rcgifters of monafleries, where confiderable fums of money were received and paid, and the accounts kept with great exactnefs. Cuftumale RofFenfe has been already mentioned, and a reference ihall now be. made to the fecond volume of Decem Scriptores, in which are many items of the income and expences fz] Vol. LIII. p. 639. of