'A farthing first findes fortie-eight, An halfepeny hopes for twentie-foure, Three farthings seekes out 16 streight, A peny puls a dozen lower: Dicke dandiprat drewe 8 out deade, Two-pence tooke 6 and went his way, Tom trip and goe with 4 is fled, But goodman grote on 3 doth stay; A testerne only 2 doth take, Moe parts a shilling cannot make.' Schoolboys of the present day often chant a quatrain without a suspicion that young scholars vented their discontent in the same doggerel in the days when the invincible Armada was approaching our shores. Professor De Morgan mentions a manuscript, date 1570, in which these lines occur:-- 'Multiplication is mie vexation, And Division is quite as bad, The Golden Rule is mie stumbling-stule, And Practice drives me mad.' In 1688, a teacher of arithmetic, W. Leybourn, doubtless thought he had made a hit by his title-page, which is thus fancifully arranged:-- A Platform { } Purchasers. Guide { for } Builders. Mate { } Measurers. Another, of the same date, thought he had discovered an original method for obtaining the square and cube roots, and says-- 'Now Logarithms lowre your sail, And Algebra give place, For here is found, that ne'er doth fail, A nearer way to your disgrace.' There was a struggle to live even a hundred years ago; we do not find that being a century nearer to the Golden Age than we are made much essential difference in men's characters:--The author of 'Arithmetick in Epitome,' published in 1740, entertains a professional jealousy of interlopers, for he observes, 'When a man has tried all Shifts, and still failed, if he can but scratch out anything like a fair _Character_, though never so stiff and unnatural, and has got but _Arithmetick_ enough in his Head to compute the Minutes in a Year, or the Inches in a Mile, he makes his last Recourse to a Garret, and, with the Painter's Help, sets up for a Teacher of _Writing_ and _Arithmetick_; where, by the Bait of low Prices, he perhaps gathers a Number of Scholars.' Another, named Chappell, indulges in a little political illustration in his book, published in 1798--was he a disappointed place-hunter? He tells us in his versified tables-- 'So 5 times 8 were 40 Scots, Who came from Aberdeen, And 5 times 9 were 45, Which gave them all the spleen.' The latter being an allusion to Wilkes' notorious No. 45 of the North Briton.