Mar. 2. 1850.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
279 
entertain, or refresh with meat,” and thence, “to 
feast with words,” as used by Chaucer and the old 
Romancists. 
Mr. Halliwell’s authorities for rendering the 
participle “ Rehating” by “Burning, or smart- 
ing,” are not given ; but it such a meaning existed, 
it may have a ready explanation by reference to 
the Hateur’s fireside labour, though suggestive of 
unskilfulness or carelessness on his part. 
Joun Westby Gipson. 
5. Queen Square, Aldersgate Street, Feb. 8. 1850. 
In answer to Dr. Todd’s inquiries, I would say, 
first of all, the “rehatours” of Douglas and the 
other Scots are beside his question, and a totally 
different word. Feelings cherished in the mind 
will recur from time to time; and those malevo- 
lent persons, who thus retain them, were said. to 
re-hate, as they are now said to re-sent. 
But the verb really in question is, per se, a per- 
fectly plain one, to re-heat.. The difficulty is as 
toits use. The primary use, of course, is to heat 
again. The nearest secondary use is ‘“ to cherish, 
cheer, or comfort, to refocillate ;” which is too 
plain to require more words. Another secondary 
meaning is “to revive or to re-kindle” in its 
metaphoric sense. This may be said well, as of 
life, health, or hope;. or ill, as of war, hatred, 
gnet or indifferently, as of love. What difficulty 
Lr. Tyrwhitt could find in “ the revival of ‘Troi- 
lus’s bitter grief” being called “the reheating of 
his sore sighs,” I cannot imagine. Even literal 
heat is not wanting to sighs, and is often ascribed 
to them by poets: and lover's sighs are warm in 
every sense. I think Tyrwhitt has thrown upon 
this passage the only darkness that involves it- 
Now comes the more difficult point, which alone 
concerns Dr. Todd in his highly interesting labours 
upon Wycliffe. And the method which, until 
better advised, I should be inclined to follow with 
those passages, is to take the word nearly, though 
not exactly, in what seems to have been. its most 
usual sense; not indeed for comforters or che- 
rishers, but for those who: promote comfort and | 
convenience, viz..ministers or servants. It does 
not at all follow, because he is blaming the intro- 
duction of these persons as expensive, superfluous, 
and otherwise evil, that he describes them by a 
word expressive of evil, As a ministering angel 
would be a reheting angel, so’ [ take a. rehetor 
here to be simply a minister, one who waits upon 
your occasions and serves you. 
ARABIC NUMERALS, 
The history of the Arabic numerals, as they 
are generally called, is so mixed up with that of 
the use of the decimal scale, that they form, in 
fact, but a single inquiry. The mere history of 
the bare forms of symbols has, doubtless, its use : 
but then it is only in the character of matériel for 
a philosophical discussion of the question —a dis- 
cussion into which the natural progress of the 
human mind and the urgency of social wants must 
enter largely. 
It might at first sight appear, from the cognate 
character of the Hebrew and Arabic languages, 
that the idea of using a single symbol for each 
number, might originate with either — with one 
as likely as with the other. But on reflection it 
will readily appear that the question rather 
resolves itself into one respecting the “ hand- 
cursive” of the Jews and Saracens, than into one 
respecting the constitution of the languages. Of 
the Jewish we know nothing, or next to nothing, 
at the period in question ; whilst the Arabic is as 
well known as even our own present style of cali- 
graphy. It deserves to be more carefully in- 
quired into than has yet been done, whether the 
invention of contracting the written compound 
symbols of the digital numbers into single sym- 
bols did not really originate amongst the Jews 
rather than the Saracens; and even whether the 
Arabs themselves did not obtain them from the 
“ Jew merchants” of the earlier ages of our era. 
One thing is tolerably certain: — that the Jew 
merchant would, as a matter of precaution, keep 
all his accounts in some secret notation, or in 
cipher. Whether this should be a modified form 
of the Hebrew notation, or of the Latin, must in 
a great degree depend upon the amount of literary 
acquirement common amongst that people at the 
time: 
Assuming that the Jews, as a literate people, 
were upon a par with their Christian cotem- 
poraries, and that their knowledge was mainly 
confined to mere commercial notation, an anony- 
mous writer has shown how the modifications of 
form could be naturally made, in vol. ii. of the 
Bath and Bristol Magazine, pp. 393—412.; the 
motto being valent quanti valet, as well as the title 
professing it to be wholly “conjectural.” Some 
ef the speculations in it may, however, deserve 
further considerations than they have yet re- 
ceived.* 
The contraction of the compound symbols for 
the first nine digits into single “ figures,” enabled 
the computer to dispense with the manual labour 
of the abacus, whilst in his graphic: notation he 
retained its essentiul principle of place: It seems 
to be almost invariably forgotten by writers: on 
* Tn vol. iii. of the same work is another paper by 
the saine author, entitled ‘“ Conjectures respecting the 
Origin of Alphabetic Writing,” pp. 365-584. Reference 
to these papers is principally made, not on the ground 
of any assumed merit, but because a/l that has been 
written on any given subject ought, if possible, to be 
brought before the minds of those engaged in the 
prosecution of the inquiry. 
