NOTATION, in music, signifies the method whereby the pitch, or tune, and duration of musical sounds are represented, and by which definite periods of silence, smiled rests, are marked. It is to music what letters and punctuation are to language.
To show the pitch, the Greeks used the letters of their alphabet, placed in various positions. [Mume.] The Romans had recourse to the majuscules of their own alphabet for the same purpose, till the latter part of the 6th century, when St. Gregory, or Popo Gregory employed the first seven capital Roman letters for the first eeptenary, beginning with the a answering to the lowest space in our base clef. For the next ascending septenary he used the corresponding small letters ; and the third he denoted by the same small letters doubled. Example, explained in modern notation :— It seems that they were also employed to take down a man's will in writing. The notarii were often slave& The word is also sometimes used to designate a secretary to the prinoeps or emperor. (Ausouius, Epig., 136; Gregor. Nasianz., in the letter inscribed -rah Noraph z; Augustine, lib. IL, 'Do Doctrinft Christiana;' Dig. 29, tit. 1, sec. 40; Lanipridius, Alex. Ser., 28; see also the references in Facciolati, Notaries.) In the fourth century, the notarii were called Exceptorcs, and were employed by the governors of the Roman provinces to draw up public documents. But the persons mentioned under the later Roman law, who corresponded most nearly to the modern 'notary, are called tabel lionea. Their business was generally to draw up contracts, wills, and other instruments. The forty-fourth Novel treats specially of them (it pi and they are spoken of in various other parts of the Novels, and in the Code. (Cod. xi. tit. 53, &c.) It appears clear that as the word notarius is the origin of the modern term notary, so the tabellio is the person from whom were derived the func tions of the modern notary public.
It is impossible to say when persons under tho name and exercising the functions of notaries were first known in England. Spelinan
cites some charters of Edward the Confessor as being executed for the king's chancellor by notaries. ((loss. tit. Notaries.) " Notaries," arc mentioned with " procurators, attornies, executors, and maintainours," in the scat. of 27 Edward III. c. 1. They were officers or ministers of the ecclesiastical courts, and may therefore have been introduced into this country at n very early period. It is generally that the power of admitting notaries to practice was vested in the archbishop of Canterbury by the 25 lien. VIII. c. 21,e. 4. The term of service and the manner of admission to practice are now regulated by the 41st Geo. III. c. 79, which prescribes that no person in England shall act as a public notary or do any notarial act unless he is duly sworn, sulruitted, and enrolled In the court wherein notaries have besil act-ustornarily sworn, admitted, and enrolled. lie must also have been bound by contract in writing to serve for seven years ter n notary, or to a scrivener using his art and mystery according to the privi lege and custom of the city of London. Persons who act a-s notaries for reward, without being properly admitted rind enrolled, are liable for every offence to forfeit the sum of 501.; but British consuls abreast are empowered to perform notarial nets (6th Geo. IV. c. 87, s 20). The licence or commission for acting ns a notary in England requires a stamp duty of 301., and in Scotland one of 201. The annual certificate is the same as for attornics. By 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. Vie prods:ens of 41 Cleo. III., so far as relates to the apprentice ship for seven years, are confined to London and Westminster, South wark, land a circuit of ten miles from the Royal Exchange in London ; and the master of the Court of Faculties of the archbishop of Canter bury is empowered to appoint and admit any attorney, solicitor, or proctor, not residing within the above-mentioned limits, to bo a notary public, to practise within any district in which he shall see good reason for making such appointment.