its original signification, was applied to a person (notarius) employed to take notes (nota) of trials and other judicial proceedings in the Roman courts. These notarii represented in some measure our modern reporters, and, like them, employed symbols of abbreviation, or a species of short-hand, to facilitate the reporting of a speaker's words. This appears from various passages in classical and ancient writers, such as Manlius and Martial. The notarii were generally slaves; and, in addition to their ordinary duties, not unfrequently took down a man's will in writing, and were sometimes called upon to attend the prefects in the capacity of transcribers, and attest the acts of spiritual dignities when the empire became Christian. In the fourth century the notarii received the name of exceptores, and the functionaries corresponding most nearly to the modern notaries were termed tabelliones. The business of the latter was to draw up contracts, wills, and other legal instruments. It is impossible to determine when notaries were first known in England. As early as the time of Edward the Confessor we read of charters being executed by notaries for the royal chancellor. The power of admitting notaries to practise seems to have been vested in the Archbishop of Canterbury by the 25 Hen. VIII., c. 21, sec. 4. The term of a notary's apprenticeship, and the manner of his admission to practise, are regulated by the act 41 Geo. III., c.