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We shall not be so bold as to dwell upon the beauty-though, in truth, the coins of Naples have a charming tint, and pleasant is the gloss of Malta: but hear our learned professor on its usefulness:

'The brasses of the ancients contain for the most part a quantity of tin united with the native copper. As the mines which are known to have been worked by them do not appear to have given them these two metals in combination, we may infer that tin was made use of designedly, and from their knowing the unfitness of mere copper for the purposes of money. The advantage, however, of the combination is shown more clearly in its reference to numismatic studies. Disinter some Roman brasses, containing but little admixture of other metal with their native copper, and you have to mourn over a work of destruction, like the havoc made by some confluent disease upon a beautiful countenance; but if the alloy have been properly united with it, the specimen has become much more attractive during its concealment by that soft shadowing of green and brown, which has spread itself over it, olov rois årμalois épa, and which, more than any other property, baffles the ingenuity of modern forgers.'-pp. 99, 100.

This must satisfy the utilitarian, and now let us hear no more malicious ridicule about rust and verdigris.

There is one other view of ancient coins, at which we must be allowed to take an almost parting glance-their localities. It is stranger to hear of Roman gold having been dug from the ruins of a Hindoo temple, than of hoards of imperial coin found in Transylvania; but the stories are alike true. Lieut. Cunningham discovered in Cashmir a hitherto unknown coinage, some fifteen centuries in duration, of Indo-Scythian kings, who, until the gallant soldier disinterred their monetary effigies, had been utterly unknown. So also in Bactria and Affghanistan many a forgotten potentate of old time has to thank Colonel Todd and Mr. Masson for having rescued their fame from non-entity through the medium of their coins. But not to dwell on these grand remote discoveries, we ourselves have been startled more than once by picking up Roman coins in the course of a country ramble-no further off than in Surrey. What a new charm it gives to this familiar scene; what interest it adds to the purple uniformity of this broad heath; how the air begins to sound with the clangors of lituus and tuba; how the hollows round about are thronged with bivouacking legionaries! There are shaggy horses, hung with trappings, drinking in a line at the trout-stream; here, stand the banners circling the prætorium, Rome's bloody hand, her wolf and twins, and her consecrated labarum: this fine white sand among the fern has rubbed bright many a breastplate; this fragrant sod been drenched with the blood of invaders hewing out the glory of Rome, and of patriots fighting for their homes

and

and altars. From that hill, no doubt, rushed at seeming unawares the swarthy cloud of Britons; but the iron cohorts were ready at a word :—the rout is over, the legion has returned, and pile their bloody arms. How know we all these deeds of old? What brought the Roman and the Briton to this field, and made us witness to the battle?-A few copper coins, immortal in their patina, which we have just shaken from a lump of turf, and have exultingly discovered to be early British, mingled in a mass with those of Claudius, Gallienus, and the Constantines.

The remarkable discoveries in Lycia by Mr. Charles Fellowes, and those in Affghanistan by Burnes, may also be mentioned as notable illustrations of the interest which ancient coins may well excite, as connected with locality: for the former may by means of their old money ascertain the names and the religion of otherwise unstoried cities-as the latter has exhibited to our wondering view whole dynasties of monarchs of whom history is silent. Mr. Fellowes very sensibly tickets his coins with the name of the place where they were severally found, on purpose to make them serve as historic records; he seems to consider them of the Homeric age, or thereabouts, and remarks that, like fossils in geology, they may be useful in indicating a date and a name to their different localities.'

Addison's Cynthio sarcastically observes that to have a relish for ancient coins it seems necessary to have a contempt for the modern.' And small, in truth, can be our self-congratulations on the score of coinage.

'O, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim,
Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?'

The perfection of machinery is attained by us, but our dies are below mediocrity. It is true that money must stack or pile for commercial purposes, but even the flattest jetton might be wedded to an elegant device: it is true that rapidity of mintage is a desirable object, but it may be equally well exerted on a good die, as on a bad one. Mr. Akerman-who understands these matters thoroughly, and has done so much for his favourite study-says with scornful brevity :—

"Of the coins of our monarchs, succeeding Queen Anne, it will scarcely be necessary to speak, except to notice their utter insignificance both in design and execution.'

ART.

ART. III. 1. Liber Sancte Marie de Melros. Munimenta Vetustiora Monasterii Cisterciensis de Melros. Presented to the Bannatyne Club by the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry. 2 vols. 4to. Edinburgh, 1837. 2. Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis. Munimenta Ecclesiæ Cathedralis Glasguensis à Sede Restaurata Seculo ineunte XII. ad Reformatam Religionem. Presented to the Maitland Club by James Ewing, LL.D. 2 vols. 4to. Glasgow, 1843. 3. Fragmenta Scoto-Monastica. Memoir of what has been already done and what Materials exist towards the Formation of a Scottish Monasticon. By a Delver in Antiquity. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1842.

4. Hora Decanica Rurales; being an Attempt to illustrate by a Series of Notes and Extracts, the Name and Title, the Origin, Appointment, and Functions, Personal and Capitular, of Rural Deans. By William Dansey, A.M., Rector of Donhead St. Andrew, Rural Dean of Chalke, Wilts. 2 vols. 4to. London.

O

UR friends beyond the Tweed, in their zeal for presbytery, seemed till lately to have almost forgotten that Christianity dates before the time of Calvin. The long ages between the apostolic times and the era of their church reformation were to them all one blank, or worse, a gloom peopled with shapes halfseen of demon and goblin-now wearing the tonsure or the tiara, now resuming their real attributes of horn and tail.

In severing themselves from the respect and interest felt for Christian antiquities by every other people of old Christendom, we apprehend that the Scotch have suffered more than their religious and philosophic teachers are willing to admit. The want of an early literature has been thought to injure national character and feeling; but it is as nothing in comparison of the want of those objects of pious enthusiasm presented in the saints and martyrs of a national church. In Scotland-where every glen has its romantic tradition, and not a mountain rears its head unsung,'-all that tends to throw a poetical glow over religion is anathema. That part of our nature which, despite the preacher, will cling to images of ancient piety, must confine its adoration to the grim features of Knox or Melville. We much question if the people are more pure in heart and feeling, or more exemplary in their morals—we are sure they are not more happy-for this stern exclusion of what appeals most to the human imagination in that high converse that links earth with heaven.

The eschewing of antiquity has had worse effects with other

VOL. LXXII. NO. CXLIV.

2 D

classes

classes than even among the common people. It has concurred with other causes to render the clergy of Scotland, in the midst of great educational advantages and all the national acuteness, a singularly unlearned clergy. We speak it with all respect-in sorrow, not in anger-but the fact shows itself everywhere.* Not only the learned controversialists, the bulwark of the Protestant faith, are all English; not only does the Presbyterian divine cast his Greek and Latin behind him with his college-gown; but even the narrow field of parochial antiquities, on which every parishclerk in England has a little learning, and the parson is the oracle of the parish-even this is to a Scotch clergyman a terra incognita; and when he ventures to speak of church matters before the Reformation, we soon find that ipsa rerum nomina perdidimus. Abbeys become cathedrals, the secular clergy are mistaken for monks, choirs for cloisters-deans, archdeacons, officials, all dignitaries and their offices are confounded together. The Statistical Account of the parishes of Scotland by the parish ministers published fifty years ago, and scarcely less the one now in progress— however otherwise creditable to the general intelligence of the body-are remarkable monuments of this entire ignorance on a subject that should be somewhat interesting to every Scotch gentleman.

It has been usual to plead want of materials as the excuse for the defect of antiquarian learning in Scotland; and not without some cause. The English antiquary, rejoicing in his Dugdale and Wharton, and in so many magnificent volumes of county histories, knows what a mere corner of the Monasticon is devoted to the monastic antiquities of Scotland, and might join with the industrious and learned author of the work on Rural Deans' which we have placed at the head of this article, in lamenting that no records remained, or at least were in the hands of the public, to show the constitution and discipline of the ancient church in Scotland.

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Since the date of that publication, something has been done to remove this national reproach. The great antiquarian societies of Scotland, children of the English Roxburgh Club, but now

*Nowhere more than in the controversy which has recently agitated Scotland, and ended in the deplorable schism of the Presbyterian Church. While the clerical disputants poured forth volumes of high and vehement argument, it was reserved for a layman, in the very end of the debate, to base his demonstration' upon the proper learning of Calvinism-the authority of its own apostles, Calvin and Beza. There was no want of acuteness, of logic, of fine casuistry on either side; but Sir William Hamilton stands alone in the contest, to show with what effect a masculine intellect, trained in the fence of the schools, can use the weapons of learning and authority. Sir W. H. has chosen to give his pamphlet the quaint title, Be not Schismatics, be not Martyrs, by Mistake.'

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directing

directing their efforts to higher ends than their parent, have for some years rivalled each other in bringing to light a body of valuable materials of civil history, and a series we think still more valuable of ecclesiastical records.

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It is now sixty years since' Lord Hailes, the historian, who knew the importance of these records, and the difficulty of consulting them in MS., suggested to the infant Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland, the publication of the chartularies of the religious houses, and offered his own assistance in the work. The suggestion was not then followed; but the seed fell on good ground, and the plant has ripened and brought forth its fruit. The means were furnished by the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs of Edinburgh and Glasgow, to whose objects and efforts we formerly directed the attention of our English readers. An article in this Review for February, 1831, announced the interesting tidings that the young Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry was preparing for the Bannatyne Club an edition, at his own expense, of the Chartulary of Melrose, containing a series of ancient charters from the eleventh, we believe, to the fourteenth century, highly interesting to the students of Scottish history.' The hand which wrote these lines, and the generous heart that cheered on every labour of letters, were cold before this announcement was fulfilled; but the Society which Scott had fostered, and its friendly rival in the West, have piously followed in the track he pointed out, and, by the munificence of their individual members, have given to the world in quick succession since 1832, the registers of the monasteries of Paisley, Melrose, Holyrood, St. Andrews, and Dunfermlyn, and of the great northern bishopric of Moray; while the muniments of the diocese of Glasgow and the chartulary of Scone have been published for both of these Clubs. Nor have the minor institutions of this family failed to follow the example of their seniors. The Abbotsford Club has printed the remaining records of the abbeys of Balmerino and Lindores, with the constitutions of the nuns of the Sciennes near Edinburgh-where chastity of old found

'Ane convent yit unthrall

To dame Sensuall, nor with riches abusit-
Sa quietlye those ladyes bene inclusit;'

and the still younger society which derives its name from Spalding, the picturesque, gossiping old chronicler of Aberdeen, is already at press with the register of that diocese, from which Wilkins and Hailes drew nearly all the memorials they were able to collect of the ecclesiastical councils of Scotland.

It is sometimes curious to trace the history of these books of register since they ceased to be treasured in the archives of their

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