0. Nothing; vacuity. It probably means the orb or _boundary_ of the earth.--10. is the first boundary, [Hebrew: tchwm], Tekum, [Greek: Deka], Decem, "terminus." Something more yet remains to be said, I think, on the _names_ of the letters. Cf. "Table of Alphabets" in Gesenius, _Lex_., ed. Tregelles, and "NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol. i., p. 434.
_Arabic Numerals._--With regard to the subject of Arabic numerals, and the instance at Castleacre (Vol. ii., pp. 27. 61.), I think I may safely say that no archæologist of the present day would allow, after seeing the original, that it was of the date 1084, even if it were not so certain that these numerals were not in use at that time. I fear "the acumen of Dr. Murray" was wasted on the occasion referred to in Mr. Bloom's work. It is a very far-fetched idea, that the visitor must cross himself to discover the meaning of the figures; not to mention the inconvenience, I might say impossibility, { 340} of reading them after he had turned his back upon them,--the position required to bring them into the order 1084. It is also extremely improbable that so obscure a part of the building should be chosen for erecting the date of the foundation; nor is it likely that so important a record would be merely impressed on the plaister, liable to destruction at any time. Read in the most natural way, it makes 1480: but I much doubt its being a date at all. The upper figure resembles a Roman I; and this, with the O beneath, may have been a mason's initials at some time when the plaister was renewed: for that the figures are at least sixty years later than the supposed date, Mr. Bloom confesses, the church not having been built until then.
I confess, after having read MR. J.G. NICHOLS' critique in a recent number of the "NOTES AND QUERIES," relative to the locality of the first printing-press erected by Caxton in this country, I am not yet convinced that it was not within the Abbey of Westminster. From MR. NICHOLS' own statements, I find that Caxton himself says his books were "imprynted" by him in the Abbey; to this, however, MR. NICHOLS replies by way of objection, "that Caxton does not say in the church of the Abbey."
On the above words of Caxton "in the Abbey of Westminster," Mr. C. Knight, in his excellent biography of the old printer, observes, "they leave no doubt that beneath the actual roof of some portion of the Abbey he carried on his art." Stow says "that Caxton was the first that carried on his art in the Abbey." Dugdale, in his _Monasticon_, speaking of Caxton, says, "he erected his office in one of the side chapels of the Abbey." MR. NICHOLS, quoting from Stow, also informs us that printing-presses were, soon after the introduction of the art, erected in the Abbey of St. Albans, St. Augustin at Canterbury, and other monasteries; he also informs us that the scriptorium of the monasteries had ever been the manufactory of books, and these places it is well known formed a portion of the abbeys themselves, and were not in detached buildings similar to the Almonry at Westminster, which was situated some two or three hundred yards distant from the Abbey. I think it very likely, when the press was to supersede the pen in the work of book-making, that its capabilities would be first tried in the very place which had been used for the object it was designed to accomplish. This idea seems to be confirmed by the tradition that a printer's office has ever been called a chapel, a fact which is beautifully alluded to by Mr. Creevy in his poem entitled _The Press_:--