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XI. Additional Remarks on the Helmdon Mantle-Tree Inscription, and on the Knowledge and Ufe of Arabic Numerals in the Thirteenth , Fourteenth , Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries. By the Rev. Sam. Denne, F.A.S. Read June i, 1797. IT was obferved by the late Dr. Johnfon [0], that " of an art uni- verfally pra&ifed the firft teacher is forgotten ;" and ftri&ly ap- plicable to this general pofition is the declaration of Mr. North, that, " though next to the art of printing there is no invention of more extenfive ufe than that of the numeral figures or cyphers, yet, when, where, and by whom they were invented, are queftions ne- ver perhaps to be clearly anfwered [b~ . Defpairing, therefore, of fiiccefs in mch an inveftigation, the inquiries I propofed were li- mited to periods when the vulgar figures of arithmetick were cer- tainly known in England, and my humble attempt was, and is, to mark the very flow progrefs made for centuries in the ufe of thefe rudiments of a fcience, an ignorance in which is now deemed dif- reputable in thofe who have acquired other branches of a liberal education. Kefpe&ing the time of the introduction of Arabic numerals into this country Dr. Wallis imagined that he had perceived traces of. [] Lives of the Poets, V. II. p. 109. []. Archaeologia, V. X, p. 361. th'em