3.  When in the public offices of the Government?  It is probable that criteria will be found in many of them, which are inaccessible to the public generally.

4.  When in the household-books of royalty and nobility?  This is a class of MSS. to which I have paid next to no attention; and, possibly, had the query been in my mind through life, many fragments {435} tending towards the solution that have passed me unnoticed would have saved me from the necessity of troubling your correspondents.  The latest that I remember to have particularly noticed is that of Charles I. in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge; but I shall not be surprised to find that the system was continued down to George I., or later still.  Conservatism is displayed in its perfection in the tenacious adherence of official underlings to established forms and venerable routine.

T.S.D.

Shooter’s Hill, April 8.

[Our correspondent will find some curious notices of early dates of Arabic numerals, from the Rev. Edmund Venables, Rev. W. Gunner, and Mr. Ouvry, in the March number of the Archaeological Journal, p. 75-76.; and the same number also contains, at p. 85., some very interesting remarks by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, illustrative of the subject, and instancing a warrant from Hugh le Despenseer to Bonefez de Peruche and his partners, merchants of a company, to pay forty pounds, dated Feb. 4, 19 Edward II., i.e. 1325, in which the date of the year is expressed in Roman numerals; and on the dorso, written by one of the Italian merchants to whom the warrant was addressed, the date of the payment, Feb. 1325. in Arabic numerals, of which Mr. Hunter exhibited a fac-simile at a meeting of the Institute.]

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Arabic Numerals.—­In the lists of works which treat of Arabic Numerals, the following have not been noticed, although they contain a review of what has been written on their introduction into this part of Europe:—­Archaeologia, vols. x. xiii.; Bibliotheca Literaria, Nos. 8. and 10., including Huetiana on this subject; and Morant’s Colchester, b. iii. p. 28.

T.J.

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ERROR IN HALLAM’S HISTORY OF LITERATURE.

If Mr. Hallam’s accuracy in parvis could be fairly judged by the following instance, and that given by your correspondent “CANTAB.” (No. 4, p. 51.), I fear much could not be said for it.  The following passage is from Mr. Hallam’s account of Campanella and his disciple Adami.  My reference is to the first edition of Mr. Hallam’s work; but the passage stands unaltered in the second.  I believe these to be rare instances of inaccuracy.