May 4. 1850.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
435 
ments 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 sur- 
prised to find that the system was continued down 
to George I., or later still. Conservatism is dis- 
played in its perfection in the tenacious adherence 
of official underlings to established forms and 
venerable routine. T. 8. D. 
Shooter’s Hill, April 8. 
[Our correspondent will find some curious notices 
of early dates of Arabic numerals, from the Rev, Ed- 
mund Venables, Rev. W. Gunner, and Mr. Ouvry, 
in the March number of the Archeological Journal, 
p- 75-76. ; and the same number also contains, at p. 85., 
some yery interesting remarks by the Rev. Joseph 
Hunter, illustrative of the subject, and instancing a 
warrant from Hugh le Despenser to Bonefez de Pe- 
ruche and his partners, merchants of a company, to 
pay forty pounds, dated Feb. 4, 19 Edward I1., 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 ad- 
dressed, the date of the payment, Feb. 1325. in Arabic 
numerals, of which Mr. Hunter exhibited a fac-simile 
at a meeting of the Institute. ] 
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 :—Archaologia, vols. x. xiii. ; 
Bibliotheca Literaria, Nos. 8. and 10., including 
Huetiana on this subject ; and Morant’s Colchester, 
b. iii. p. 28. oP elie 
ERROR IN HALLAM’S HISTORY OF LITERATURE. 
If Mr. Hallam’s accuraey in parvis could be 
fairly judged by the following instance, and that 
given by your correspondent “Canras.” (No. 4. 
p-51.), { 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 be- 
lieve these to be rare instances of inaccuracy. 
“Tobias Adami,..... who dedicated to the phi- 
losophers of Germany his own Prodromus Philosophie 
Iustaurario, pretixed to his edition of Campanella’s Com- 
pendium de Rerum Nature, published at Frankfort in 
1617. Most of the other writings of the master seem 
to have preceded this edition, for Adami enumerates 
them in his Prodromus.” — Hist. of Literature, iii, 149, 
The title is not Prodromus Philosophie Instau- 
ratio, which is not sense; but Prodromus Philo- 
sophie Instaurande (Forerunner of a philosophy 
to be constructed). ‘This Prodromus is a treatise 
of Campanella’s, not, as Mr. Hallam says, of 
Adami. Adami published the Prodromus for 
Campanella, who was in prison; and he wrote a 
preface, in which he gives a list of other writings 
of Campanella, which he proposes to publish 
afterwards, What Mr. Hallam calls an “ edition,” 
was the first publication. 
Mere accident enabled me to detect these errors. 
I am not a bibliographer, and do not know a ten- 
thousandth part of what Mr. Hallam knows. I 
extract this note from my common-place book, 
and send it you, hoping to elicit the opinions of 
some of your learned correspondents on the ge- 
neral accuracy in biography and bibliography of 
Mr. Hallam’s History of Literature. Has Mr. 
Bolton Corney, if I may venture to name him, ex- 
amined the work? His notes and opinion would 
be particularly valuable. 
As a few inaccuracies such as this may occur 
in any work of large scope proceeding from the 
most learned of men, and be accidentally detected 
by an ignoramus, so a more extensive impeach- 
ment of Mr. Hallam’s accuracy would make a very 
trifling deduction from his great claims to respect 
and well-established fame. I believe I rightly un- 
derstand the spirit in which you desire your pe- 
riodical to be the medium for emending valuable 
works, when I thus guard myself against the ap- 
pearance of disrespect to a great ornament of lite- 
rature. C, 
NOTES FROM CUNNINGHAM’S HANDBOOK FOR 
LONDON. 
We have already shown pretty clearly, how 
high is the opinion we entertain of the value of 
our able contributor Mr. Peter Cunningham's 
amusing Handbook for London, by the insertion of 
numerous Notes upon his first edition. We will 
now give our readers an opportunity of judging 
how much the second edition, which is just pub- 
lished, has been improved through the further 
researches of that gentleman, by giving them a 
few Notes from it, consisting entirely of new 
smatter, and very curious withal. When we add 
that the work is now enriched by a very copious 
Index of Names, it will readily be seen how much 
the value and utility of the book has been in- 
creased. 
Hanover Square,— “The statue of William Pitt, by 
Sir Francis Chantrey, set up in the year 1831, is of 
bronze, and cost 7000/. I was present at its erection 
with Sir Francis Chantrey and my father, who was 
Chantrey’s assistant. The statue was placed on its 
pedestal between seven and eight in the morning, and 
while the workmen were away at their breakfasts, a 
rope was thrown round the neck of the figure, and a 
vigorous attempt made by several sturdy Reformers to 
pull it down. When word of what they were about 
was brought to my father, he exclaimed, with a smile 
