intended, and certainly little or no use can now be made of the office numerals."
   Mr. Hunter acknowledges the use he had made of Nicolas's Chronological Tables in rectifying the order of the Fines, and we can hardly be far wrong in following the same guidance.
   Departing therefore from the Office numerals, we have arranged our transcripts in their exact order of date, according to Sir Harris Nicolas's authority.
   As to the form of printing which we have adopted, we would observe that, although very numerous instances occur in which it is impossible to decide with certainty how a particular contraction would have been really dilated by the original scribe had he been required to write the entire words; yet the contracted form is so very repulsive to most readers, and the doubtful cases can so easily be recorded in a note, that we have determined to print our transcripts "in extenso."
   We have also departed from the continued unbroken lines of the originals, for the convenience of reference, and have separated the different parts of the Fine into distinct paragraphs. So again as to capital letters, following Mr Hunter's example, who states truly that "in the original the use of the capital letter was evidently regulated by no fixed principles, we have retained it in the names of persons, places, and festivals," and wherever " it appeared to facilitate the reading of the Record,—not to render that which was perhaps somewhat dark, still more obscure. In respect of the punctuation, the scribes, admirable masters as they appear to have been in most respects of their art, seem to have proceeded without design and without system." "We have therefore introduced entirely our own punctuation, except in some few cases where the punctuation of the scribe seems to be important. It would be superfluous here to remind the antiquarian