rarities is so prevalent as in England. The wealth of the kingdom, the
rapidity with which intelligence is circulated, and the facility with
which things are conveyed from one end of the island to the other, are
instrumental causes; but the main cause must be the oddity of the people
themselves. There is a popular notion which has originated, Heaven knows
how, that, a Queen Anne’s farthing (the smallest coin they have) is
worth 500_l._; and some little while ago, an advertisement appeared in
the newspapers offering one for sale at this price. This at once excited
the hopes of every body who possessed one of these coins, for there are
really so many in existence that the fictitious value is little or
nothing. Other farthings were speedily announced to be sold by private
contract,—go where you would, this was the topic of conversation. The
strange part of the story is to come. A man was brought before the
magistrates charged by a soldier with having assaulted him on the
highway, and robbed him of eight pounds, some silver, and a Queen Anne’s
farthing. The man protested his innocence, and brought sufficient proof
of it. Upon further investigation it was discovered that some
pettifogging lawyer, as ignorant as he was villainous, had suborned the
soldier to bring this false accusation against an innocent man, in the
hopes of hanging him, and getting possession of the farthing.
Unbelievable as you may think this, I have the most positive testimony
of its truth.
Another vulgar notion is, that there is no such thing as a male
tortoise-shell-coloured cat. Some fortunate person, however, has just
given notice that he is in possession of such a curiosity, and offers to
treat with the virtuosos for the sale of this _rara avis_, as he
literally calls it. They call the male cats in this country Thomas, and
the male asses either Edward or John. I cannot learn the reason of this
strange custom.
The passion for old china is confined to old women, and indeed is almost
extinct. Medals are in less request since science has become
fashionable; or perhaps the pursuit is too expensive; or it requires
more knowledge than can be acquired easily enough by those who wish for
the reputation of knowledge without the trouble of acquiring it.
Minerals are now the most common objects of pursuit; engraved portraits
form another, since a clergyman some forty years ago published a
biographical account of all persons whose likenesses had been engraved
in England. This is a mischievous taste, for you rarely or never meet an
old book here with the author’s head in it; all are mutilated by the
collectors; and I have heard that still more mischievous collections of
engraved title-pages have been begun. The book-collectors are of a
higher order,—not that their pursuit necessarily implies knowledge; it
is the love of possessing rarities, or the pleasure of pursuit, which in
most cases actuates them;—one person who had spent many years in
collecting large paper copies, having obtained nearly all which had ever
been thus printed, sold the whole collection for the sake of beginning
to collect them again. I shall bring home an English bookseller’s
catalogue as a curiosity: every thing is specified that can tempt these
curious purchasers: the name of the printer, if he be at all famous;
even the binder, for in this art they certainly are unrivalled. The size
of the margin is of great importance. I could not conceive what was
meant by _a tall copy_, till this was explained to me. If the leaves of
an old book have never been cut smooth its value is greatly enhanced;
but if it should happen that they have never been cut open, the copy
becomes inestimable.
The good which these collectors do is, that they preserve volumes which
would otherwise perish; and this out-balances the evil which they have
done in increasing the price of old books ten and twenty fold. One
person will collect English poetry, another Italian, a third classics, a
fourth romances; for the wiser sort go upon the maxim of having
something of every thing, and every thing of something. They are in
general sufficiently liberal in permitting men of letters to make use of
their collections: which are not only more complete in their kind than
could be found in the public libraries of England, but are more
particularly useful in a country where the public libraries are rendered
almost useless by absurd restrictions and bad management, and where
there are no convents. The want of convents is, if only in this respect,
a national misfortune.
The species of minor collectors are very numerous. Some ten years ago
many tradesmen issued copper money of their own, which they called
tokens, and which bore the arms of their respective towns, or their own
heads, or any device which pleased them. How worthless these pieces must
in general have been, you may judge, when I tell you that their current
value was less than two _quartos_. They became very numerous; and as
soon as it was difficult to form a complete collection,—for while it was
easy nobody thought it worth while,—the collectors began the pursuit.
The very worst soon became the most valuable, precisely because no
person had ever preserved them for their beauty. Will you believe me
when I tell you that a series of engravings of these worthless coins was
actually begun, and that a cabinet of them sold for not less than fifty
pieces of eight? When the last new copper currency was issued, a
shopkeeper in the country sent for a hundred pounds worth from the mint,
on purpose that he might choose out a good specimen for himself. Some
few geniuses have struck out paths for themselves; one admits no work
into his library if it extends beyond a single volume; one is employed
in collecting play-bills, another in collecting tea-pots, another in
hunting for visiting cards, another in forming a list of remarkable
surnames, another more amusingly in getting specimens of every kind of
wig that has been worn within the memory of man. But the King of
Collectors is a gentleman in one of the provinces, who with great pains
and expense procures the halters which have been used at executions:
these he arranges round his museum in chronological order, labelling
each with the name of the criminal to whom it belonged, the history of
his offence, and the time and place of his execution. In the true spirit
of virtù, he ought to hang himself, and leave his own halter to complete
the collection.
You will not wonder if mean vices should sometimes be found connected
with such mean pursuits. The collectors are said to acknowledge only
nine commandments of the ten, rejecting the eighth.[16] At the sale of a
virtuoso’s effects, a single shell was purchased at a very high price;
the buyer held it up to the company: “There are but two specimens of
this shell,” said he, “known to be in existence, and I have the
other;”—and he set his foot upon it and crushed it to pieces.
Footnote 16:
In the original it is said the seventh. The Catholics reject the
second commandment, and make up the number by dividing the tenth into
two. Their seventh therefore is our eighth, and has accordingly been
so translated.—TR.
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LETTER XXII.
_English Coins.—Paper Currency.—Frequent Executions for Forgery.—Dr
Dodd.—Opinion that Prevention is the End of Punishment.—This End not
answered by the Frequency of Executions.—Plan for the Prevention of
Forgery rejected by the Bank._
English money is calculated in pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings;
four farthings making one penny, twelve pence one shilling, twenty
shillings one pound. Four shillings and sixpence is the value of the
_peso-duro_ at _par_. It is in one respect better than our money,
because it is the same over the whole kingdom.
As the value of money has gradually lessened, the smallest denominations
of coin have every where disappeared. The farthing is rarely seen; and
as the penny, which was formerly an imaginary coin, has within these few
years been issued, it will soon entirely disappear, just as the mite or
half farthing has disappeared before it. A coin of new denomination
always raises the price of those things which are just below its value;
the seller finding it profitable as well as convenient to avoid
fractions. The penny is a handsome piece of money, though of
uncomfortable weight, being exactly an English ounce; so that in
receiving change you have frequently a quarter of a pound of copper to
carry in your pocket:—the legend is indented on a raised rim; and by
this means both the legend and the stamp are less liable to be effaced.
For the same reason a slight concavity is given to the half-penny. In
other respects these pieces are alike, bearing the king’s head on one
side, and on the other a figure of Britannia sitting on the shore, and
holding out an olive branch.
The silver coins are four: the crown, which is five shillings, and the
half-crown, the shilling, and the sixpence or half-shilling. The silver
groat, which is four pence, and silver penny, were once current; but
though these, with the silver three pence and half-groat, are still
coined, they never get into circulation. Those which get abroad are
given to children, and laid by for their rarity. The crown piece in like
manner, when met with, is usually laid aside; it is the size of our
dollar, and has, like it, on one side the head of the sovereign, on the
other the arms of the kingdom; but the die, though far from good, is
better than ours. Nothing, however, can be so bad as the other silver
coins; that is, all which are in use. The sixpence, though it should
happen not to be a counterfeit, is not worth one-fourth of its nominal
value; it is a thin piece of crooked silver, which seldom bears the
slightest remains of any impress. The shillings also are worn perfectly
smooth, though not otherwise defaced; they are worth about half their
current value. The coiners are not contented with cent. per cent. profit
for issuing good silver, for which the public would be much indebted to
them whatever the government might be, silver being inconveniently
scarce; they pour out base money in abundance, and it requires more
circumspection than I can boast to avoid the loss which is thus
occasioned. The half-crown approaches nearer its due weight; and it is
more frequently possible to trace upon it the head of Charles II., or
James, of William, or Queen Anne, the earliest and latest princes whose
silver is in general circulation.
A new coinage of silver has been wanted and called for time out of mind.
The exceeding difficulty attending the measure still prevents it. For,
if the old silver were permitted to be current only for a week after the
new was issued, all the new would be ground smooth and re-issued in the
same state as the old, as indeed has been done with all the silver of
the two last reigns. And if any temporary medium were substituted till
the old money could be called in, that also would be immediately
counterfeited. You can have no conception of the ingenuity, the
activity, and the indefatigable watchfulness of roguery in England.
There are three gold coins: the guinea, which is twenty-one shillings,
its half, and its third. The difference between the pound and guinea is
absurd, and occasioned some trouble at first to a foreigner when
accounts were calculated in the one and paid in the other; but paper has
now become so general that this is hardly to be complained of. Compared
to the piece of eight, the guinea is a mean and diminutive coin. There
are five-guinea pieces in existence, which are only to be seen in the
cabinets of the curious. The seven-shilling piece was first coined
during the present reign, and circulated but a few years ago: there were
such struck during the American war, and never issued. I know not why.
One of these I have seen, which had never been milled: the obverse was a
lion standing upon the crown, in this respect handsomer than the present
piece, which has the crown and nothing else; indeed the die was in every
respect better. Both the current gold and copper are almost exclusively
of the present reign. It may be remarked, that the newest gold is in the
worst taste; armorial bearings appear best upon a shield; they have
discarded the shield, and tied them round with the garter. Medallie,
that is, historical money, has often been recommended; but it implies
too much love for the arts, and too much attention to posterity, to be
adopted here. There has not been a good coin struck in England since the
days of Oliver Cromwell.
There was no paper in circulation of less than five pounds value till
the stoppage of the Bank during the late war. Bills of one and two
pounds were then issued, and these have almost superseded guineas. Upon
the policy or impolicy of continuing this paper money after the
immediate urgency has ceased, volumes and volumes have been written. On
one side it is asserted, that the great increase of the circulating
medium, by lessening the value of money raises the price of provisions,
and thus virtually operates as a heavy tax upon all persons who do not
immediately profit by the banking trade. On the other hand, the
conveniences were detailed more speciously than truly, and one advocate
even went so far as to entitle his pamphlet, “Guineas an Incumbrance.”
Setting the political advantages or disadvantages aside, as a subject
upon which I am not qualified to offer an opinion, I can plainly see
that every person dislikes these small notes; they are less convenient
than guineas in the purse, and more liable to accidents. You are also
always in danger of receiving forged ones; and if you do, the loss lies
at your own door, for the Bank refuses to indemnify the holder. This
injustice the directors can safely commit: they know their own strength
with government, and care little for the people; but the country
bankers, whose credit depends upon fair dealing, pay their forged notes,
and therefore provincial bills are always preferred in the country to
those of the Bank of England. The inconvenience in travelling is
excessive: you receive nothing but these bills; and if you carry them a
stage beyond their sphere of circulation they become useless.
The frequent executions for forgery in England are justly considered by
the humane and thinking part of the people as repugnant to justice,
shocking to humanity, and disgraceful to the nation. Death has been the
uniform punishment in every case, though it is scarcely possible to
conceive a crime capable of so many modifications of guilt in the
criminal. The most powerful intercessions have been made for mercy, and
the most powerful arguments urged in vain; no instance has ever yet been
known of pardon. A Doctor of Divinity was executed for it in the early
part of the present reign, who, though led by prodigality to the
commission of the deed for which he suffered, was the most useful as
well as the most popular of all their preachers. Any regard to his
clerical character was, as you may well suppose, out of the question in
this land of schism; yet earnest entreaties were made in his behalf. The
famous Dr Johnson, of whom the English boast as the great ornament of
his age, and as one of the best and wisest men whom their country has
ever produced, and of whose piety it will be sufficient praise to say
that he was almost a Catholic,—he strenuously exerted himself to procure
the pardon of this unfortunate man, on the ground that the punishment
exceeded the measure of the offence, and that the life of the offender
might usefully be passed in retirement and penitence. Thousands who had
been benefited by his preaching petitioned that mercy might be shown
him, and the Queen herself interceded, but in vain. During the interval
between his trial and his execution he wrote a long poem entitled Prison
Thoughts; a far more extraordinary effort of mind than the poem of
Villon, composed under similar circumstances, for which, in an age of
less humanity, the life of the author was spared. Had the punishment of
Dr Dodd been proportioned to his offence, he would have been no object
of pity; but when he suffered the same death as a felon or a murderer,
compassion overpowered the sense of his guilt, and the people
universally regarded him as the victim of a law inordinately rigorous.
It was long believed that his life had been preserved by connivance of
the executioner; that a waxen figure had been buried in his stead, and
that he had been conveyed over to the continent.
More persons have suffered for this offence since the law has been
enacted than for any other crime. In all other cases palliative
circumstances are allowed their due weight; this alone is the sin for
which there is no remission. No allowance is made for the pressure of
want, for the temptation which the facility of the fraud holds out, nor
for the difference between offences against natural or against political
law. More merciless than Draco, or than those inquisitors who are never
mentioned in this country without an abhorrent expression of real or
affected humanity, the commercial legislators of England are satisfied
with nothing but the life of the offender who sins against the Bank,
which is their Holy of Holies. They sacrificed for this offence one of
the ablest engravers in the kingdom, the inventor of the dotted or chalk
engraving. A mechanic has lately suffered who had made a machine to go
without horses, and proved its success by travelling in it himself about
forty leagues. A man of respectable family and unblemished conduct has
just been executed in Ireland, because, when reduced by unavoidable
misfortunes to the utmost distress, he committed a forgery to relieve
his family from absolute want.
There is an easy and effectual mode of preventing the repetition of this
offence, by amputating the thumb; it seems one of the few crimes for
which mutilation would be a fit punishment. But it is a part of the
English system to colonize with criminals. It is not the best mode of
colonizing; nor, having adopted it, do they manage it in the best
manner. Of all crimes, there should seem to be none for which change of
climate is so effectual a cure as for forgery; and as there is none
which involves in itself so little moral depravity, nor which is so
frequently committed, it is evident that these needless executions
deprive New South Wales of those who would be its most useful members,
men of ingenuity, less depraved, and better educated in general, than
any other convicts.
I have seen it recorded of some English judge, that when he was about to
sentence a man to death for horse-stealing, the man observed it was hard
he should lose his life for only stealing a horse; to which the judge
replied, “You are not to be hanged for stealing a horse, but in order
that horses may not be stolen.” The reply was as unphilosophical as
unfeeling; but it is the fashion among the English to assert that
prevention is the end of punishment, and to disclaim any principle of
vengeance, though vengeance is the foundation of all penal law, divine
and human. Proceeding upon this fallacious principle, they necessarily
make no attempt at proportioning the punishment to the offence; and
offences are punished, not according to the degree of moral guilt which
they indicate in the offender, but according to the facility with which
they can be committed, and to their supposed danger in consequence to
the community. But even upon this principle it is no longer possible to
justify the frequent executions for forgery; the end of prevention is
not answered, and assuredly the experiment has been tried sufficiently
long, and sufficiently often.
In other cases, offences are held more venial as the temptation
thereunto is stronger, man being frail by nature; in this the punishment
is made heavier in proportion to the strength of the temptation. Surely,
it is the duty of the Bank Directors to render the commission of forgery
as difficult as possible. This is not effected by adopting private marks
in their bills, which, as they are meant to be private, can never enable
the public to be upon their guard. Such means may render it impossible
that a false bill should pass undiscovered at the bank, but do not in
the slightest degree impede its general circulation. What is required is
something so obvious that a common and uninstructed eye shall
immediately perceive it; and nothing seems so likely to effect this as a
plan which they are said to have rejected,—that in every bill there
should be two engravings, the one in copper, the other in wood, each
executed by the best artists in his respective branch. It is obvious
that few persons would be able to imitate either, and highly improbable
that any single one could execute both, or that two persons sufficiently
skilful should combine together. As it now is, the engraving is such as
may be copied by the clumsiest apprentice to the trade. The additional
expense which this plan would cost the bank would be considerably less
than what it now expends in hanging men for an offence, which could not
be so frequent if it was not so easy. The bank directors say the
Pater-noster in their own language, but they seem to forget that one of
the petitions which He who best knew the heart of man enjoined us to
make is, that we may not be led into temptation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LETTER XXIII.
_Westminster Abbey.—Legend of its Consecration.—Its single Altar in bad
Taste.—Gothic or English Architecture.—Monuments.— Banks the
Sculptor.—Wax-work.—Henry the Seventh’s Chapel.—Mischievous
Propensity of the People to mutilate the Monuments._
All persons who come to London, from whatever part of the world they
may, whether English or foreigners, go to see Westminster Abbey, the
place of interment of all illustrious men; kings, admirals, statesmen,
poets, philosophers, and divines, even stage-players and musicians.
There is perhaps no other temple in the world where such practical
testimony is borne to the truth, that “Death levels all distinctions,
except those of desert.”