AN ANCIENT BRITISH COIN RECENTLY DISCOVERED AT DOVER.

DOVER beach for this month past has exhibited, on a reduced scale, the excitement of a California. The local wits have christened the shore in front of the town the "Diggings," from the quantity of gold and silver which the sea, during the late violent gales, has washed up. In one respect the British "placer" surpasses that of America, for the precious metals are found ready coined. Not only money, but trinkets are picked up, such as brooches and rings; but the latter are modern, while the coins are of all ages, commencing with the early British, and including the Roman, the Saxon, the Danish, and the Norman periods, down to the reign of George the Third; the same individual frequently finding pieces of Roman money lying in close company with a shilling of Queen Elizabeth, a groat of one of the Plantagenets, or a rose noble of Henry the Eighth, while local tokens, such as those issued formerly by the Cinque Ports Towns, of Sandwich, Rye, Hythe, Romney and Winchelsea are to be had for the trouble of stooping. The money, too, belongs to all countries as well as all ages, if we may judge from what has been already found, for French livres, German kreutzers, Russian kopecs, and other strange coins from the mints of Spain, Portugal and the rest of Europe, have sent their representatives to this singular congress.

It may be reasonably demanded, What strange medley of circumstances brought these coins upon Dover beach? and the only satisfactory answer to this question is, that the harbour commissioners of the port, some time back, cleared out the deposit of mud from the "Pent," which is a large open space in the centre of the town, and flooded by every tide. The contents of the Pent was composed of the deposits brought down by the little river Dour, in addition to such articles as may have been dropped from vessels detained by wind or accident, or other causes of detention, for ages past. The whole of this matter, when excavated, was flung into the sea facing the town. And in this manner, it is supposed, that the bay became the common purse into which the various coins found upon Dover beach have been thrown, as the excavations of the Pent progressed, and which from time to time the sea, during the recent winter gales, cast ashore. There are strong grounds for supposing that the mud flung into Dover bay contained the majority of the coins, from the fact that a blue earthy matter, exactly resembling the Pent deposit in colour and smell is found adhering to their surfaces.

The singular coin at the head of this paper was also covered with a blue mud, and in all probability it had been lying in the Pent, or in that locality, for ages. Its preservation is surprising; the edges of the quaint old head, and of the device on the opposite side, being as sharp as the day it left the hand of its coiner. There are some marks upon it which lead to the belief that it is a Saxon piece, of the earliest period of

ANCIENT BRITISH COIN DISCOVERED AT DOVER. 335

that people's dominion in Britain. The cross at the bottom of the uncouth figure of the man's head being one of those symbols found upon the ecclesiastical coins of that date. But there are also some strong evidences that it is an early British piece of money, for we are warranted now in believing, in opposition to the statement of Cæsar, that our pagan ancestors coined in gold, silver and copper. And further, that they charged their coins with various symbols, such as a horse, a wheel, a flower resembling a sunflower, and also a combination of figures of a man, a horse, and a wheel, which, under the fervent heat of a warm imagination, may be hatched into the representative of a British warrior in his formidable war-chariot.

Attempts have been made to explain the meaning of the symbols found upon British coins, by assuming that, like the money of most barbarous nations, they are impressed with devices partaking more of a religious than a civil or military character. And as the Britons could not display magnificent temples, or altars upon their coins, we find them. studded with circles of beads or dots, which have been by many numismatists considered to represent their heathen temples, which are known to have been composed, like Stonehenge and other Druidical remains, of circles of massive stones. Viewed through a religious medium, may not the device on the reverse of this ancient coin represent the Kêd or the Ceres of the Britons? for it is rather singular, that this goddess is described in the rites and ceremonies of the Britons as a hen in appearance, as "large as a proud mare, and swelling out like a ship upon the waters." Certainly the figure more resembles a bird than a mare. It also has been likened to a cock, and a horse, which induced a facetious numismatist to suggest, that it bore a stronger resemblance to that hybrid, known as a cock-horse of our boyhood, than any other animal.

The curved device encircling the bird or horse has been supposed to represent a serpent, and the balls or beads at its tail the sacred eggs of the Druids. However, we feel that, in the absence of more correct data, than mere conjecture respecting the mysteries and religious rites of that ancient order, we should, if we indulged in the reveries of which this subject is so very susceptible, soon find ourselves in a wilderness of doubt and romantic speculation. It must, however, be admitted, that the subject is full of interest, and that it is very desirable to have a correct classification of all uncertain coins. This interest is also further heightened by national emotions towards those medals found in our own land, as, independent of their historic value, in throwing a light upon past ages, we are by these means gradually accumulating data, that may prove invaluable to our successors, and enable them to arrive at satisfactory conclusions respecting the locality to which they originally belonged.

ENGLAND AND HER HISTORIANS.*

THE history of England has been written in every conceivable form, from the comic to the tragic, from burlesque to sublime; it has entered into melodrama and epic, furnished story-books for children, and manuals for theorists; suggested inexhaustible themes for abstract disquisitions on constitutional rights, dogmas of law, morals, and divinity; supplied examples, contrasts, and illustrations to all writers of all other histories all over the globe; and, like the newspaper and the playhouse, which every penny-a-liner and stage-message-deliverer imagines himself qualified to manage, it is the one great subject which all writers believe they can treat with novelty (of which there is no doubt) and impartiality (of which there is considerable doubt) out of a special inspiration of their own. We have in our libraries, consequently, more histories of England than we are able to read, and a great many more than we are likely to derive any real advantage from. The range is extensive, and full of variety; from Miss Corner to Mr. Hallam, from Goldsmith to Macaulay, from Wade to Mackintosh, from Hume to Lingard, from Henry to Grainger, from the catechisms to the philosophies of historical lore, besides the innumerable and infinitely diversified "contributions " history in the shape of treatises, and memoirs, and sections of research, including the Sharon Turners, the D'Israelis, the Clarendons, the Burnetts, the Whitelocks, the Carlyles, the Vaughans, and a hundred others to say nothing of foreign commentators, such as Guizot and Villemain, Chateaubriand, and D'Aubigné. Looking at the vast pile of books that have been accumulated upon the continuous narrative and vexed topics of our English history, it would appear that we have had enough, and more than enough, of dissertation, analysis, and record. But English readers, like Mr. Softhead in the comedy, who never can get too much of a duke, seem to possess an insatiable appetite for reading books that relate to their own country. The nationality of the English has a wonderful toleration for dullness and repetition. It will bear with a kind of standing enthusiasm to hear the same thing said over and over again, even be it ever so i said, just as it delights in "Rule, Britannia," and "Britons, strike home," no matter how discordant be the chorus.

to

It is

This curiosity about our own history, and the sustaining power that carries us through its gratification in whatever shape the familiar pleasure is presented to us, is an excellent thing in itself. The best fundamental instruction, of a practical and enlightening kind, an Englishman can receive, is that which is to be found in the annals of his country. It constitutes the safest foundation upon which to erect the superstructure of more widely extended knowledge in reference to other countries. the key to all human policies and political principles. It contains more lessons of statesmanship, of wisdom in the direction of public affairs, of sound elementary truths, and sagacious conduct, than any other history in the world, including even the Greek and Roman, whose standards of morality and virtue are not always reconcileable with Christian ethics, or possible of adoption by modern societies. It is, therefore, an

The History of the British Empire, from the Accession of James the First By John Macgregor, M.P. 2 vols. Chapman and Hall,

excellent thing that Englishmen should be intimately acquainted with English history" from the earliest times," to use the easy phrase of the title-pages.

But we must confess to some perplexity as to the mode and means of acquiring this desirable knowledge amidst the conflicting authorities that display such variegated claims upon attention. If there be wisdom in a multitude of councillors, we must acknowledge, for our own parts, that we have not been able to discover it in this particular case. On the contrary, we own to a little confusion and bewilderment on this subject; and must frankly avow that if any friend of ours, who desired to study our history dispassionately, and really for the sake of unprejudiced information, were to ask us which out of the legion of historians we should recommend him to select, we should hardly know what answer to make to so, apparently, simple an inquiry.

The difficulty consists in this-that each individual history sets up special claims of its own, and every individual historian believes that he has done something that had not been done by anybody else, that he has corrected certain errors, avoided certain prejudices, rendered facts clearer, expanded important details, escaped prolixity, or placed hitherto obscure passages in the broad light of a more advanced intelligence. It is impossible to deny in most cases the justice, more or less, of most of these claims. No man sets about writing over again what has already been so often written by others, unless he imagines he can do something with it that has never been done with it before. Whether his execution of his intentions be equal to his aspiration, or whether, indeed, he has not all along been labouring under a strong historical hallucination, are questions which the doomed reader must find out and determine when it is too late to recall the time he has expended on the investigation. There is one gain, however, if it be a gain, which the public at large derive from the multitude of instructors who have thus devoted themselves to the arduous labour of making books for their delectation-namely, that there are histories of England to be had for every creed, class, age and party in the community, so that nobody need be at a loss in picking out a history that will exactly suit his previous opinions, that will flatter and strengthen his convictions, whether they be true or false, that will furnish him with reasons for the faith that was in him long before he had any reasons to support it, and that will form a convenient armory from whence he may draw all manner of weapons for fighting the battles of the political sect to which, by accident, temperament, or inheritance, he happens to belong. This is, probably, an advantage, even if it be a questionable one. saves time in a country where time is of the first consideration-and it saves the trouble of thinking, which is a tempting consideration in all countries.

It

Seeing, then, that there are so many works of this description to be had of all sizes and complexions, the appearance of a couple of weighty and ambitious volumes of British history, at a time, too, when Mr. Macaulay is issuing the fruits of his researches on the same subject with a leisurely dignity that at once stimulates and tantalizes the impatience of his readers, is a circumstance calculated to excite some surprise and not a little curiosity. We are far from desiring it to be supposed from what we have said that we think there is not room for more histories of England. There will always be room for more histories of England, so long as there are men capable of shedding new lights upon the under

VOL. XXXI.

B B

ENGLAND AND HER HISTORIANS.

taking, and who know how to avail themselves judiciously of the new sources of information that are constantly opening up in the publication of documents, correspondence, and diaries hitherto locked up in family chests and official archives. The masses of unexpected facts that have been thus developed within the last five-and-twenty years abundantly justify the right of any competent author to reconstruct a history anew with the help of such materials. But we must see that he is competent, and that he has employed with skill and judgment the accumulated means at his command.

Mr. Macgregor, to whom we are indebted for the volumes that have led us into these observations, is well known as an able statistician; and we naturally expected to find, therefore, that the portions, or aspects, of our history to which he would have brought the largest amount of investigation are those which relate to our trade and commerce, our international system as affecting them, our colonies, and our industrial progress. In this expectation his labours have not disappointed us. He enters at great length into all these topics, and draws from the inquiry some results which will be admitted on all hands to be sound and just. It is a main object of his history to show that the peaceful cultivation of her arts and manufactures is the true policy of England, that the civil and religious liberty we enjoy is best and most securely maintained by the freedom of our commerce, and the encouragement of our domestic springs of wealth and power, and that internal feuds and continental wars are no less injurious to present interests than they are impedimental to our future progress. These views are clearly and energetically enforced, wherever the occasion calls for them; and in this respect Mr. Macgregor's history differs from most others, inasmuch as it keeps special and important objects in view which it urges with a fulness of exposition and earnestness of purpose somewhat startling in the pages of history. But history is no longer to be written as it used to be. It is no longer a staid and formal chronicle of events, in which the chief, or only actors are ministers and politicians, kings, generals and ambassadors, whose certificates of character are to be found in treaties and acts of parliament, and who move across the stage only to pronounce, in the manner of the old French drama, long speeches filled with dreary solemnities. It must address itself to the people, or it is waste paper. It must contain that sort of information which cannot be compiled out of the Rushvilles and Thurlows, and which comes nearer home to the actual business of life. It must not, in short, be merely a history of state papers and parliamentary campaigns, but a history of the people themselves, from whose labours and struggles the action of the state draws its vitality. And just such a history is this of Mr. Macgregor's. It is written for the people, and is likely to be extensively read by them.

It embraces in an elaborate introduction, which absorbs the whole of the massive contents of the first volume, a rapid and intelligent survey of our history from the Saxon period, beginning with the mission of St. Augustine, and ending with the execution of Charles I. The second volume, dedicated to the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, carries down the narrative to Cromwell's declaration of war against Spain. In the treatment of the various topics that come under consideration in this extensive field of inquiry, Mr. Macgregor is entitled to credit for great diligence in the collection of facts, and integrity in the statement of them. He leaves few sources of authority unexplored; goes over the old