19

No. 24.-An ancient Brass or Bronze Manilla, found in Monaghan.
No. 25.-Manilla, fabricated in England, and now passing current in Africa.

16

9

sed illas innoxias habent. Westmonasterii ampla sedes, ubi jus litigantibus dicitur, ex illis sylvis trabes accepit, et efficta multa arte tabulata. Mirum dictu! araneis circum parietes pendentibus, vix ligno tam sordidæ texturæ filamenta adhærescunt."

From the same work I add an anecdote of James the First, (who was the patron of Barclay, and for whom Barclay offered to fight, either with his sword or pen-sive ensem in stylos dividi, sive stylos in gladium porrigi jubes, præsto sum) which may be familiar to the historical antiquary, but which I do not recollect meeting with in the common histories of James. He is speaking of the severe winters of Norway:

"Memorabili exemplo huic pesti is ereptus est quem Numen ad regnum Britanniarum destinaverat, nunc unius Scotiæ Rex, Jacobus. Filiam Annam illi desponderat Fredericus II. Cimbrica Chersoonesi Rex. Sed cùm illa in Scotia veheretur, non semel in Norwegiam ejecta est, vi sortium, malisque geniis ad beneficia imperium ventos cientibus, quæ aliquanto post facinoris pœnam luit. Sed Rex interim amore et juventa impatiens ad conjugem deferri constituit, provectâque jam hyeme illud mare glacie infame ingressus est. Coelo et tempestatibus luctatum Norwegia excepit, nec multo post quæ eum vexerat navis, velut in avidam dilata, ita circumstante glacie immobilis hæsit. Res ad Jacobum delata est, statimque libuit hoc insolenti spectaculo frui, quippe nulla

suæ tenent.

Britanniæ littora concretas undas

hospitio regis procul. Processit igitur, nec spirantibus ventis, nec acriter, ut videbatur, inhorrenti aëre, contemplatusque paulisper glacie stratum mare in thalamum rediit, necdum aliquid de pernicie hyemis suspicatus. Sed dum foco se admovit, ex circumstantibus unus in dexteram Regis manum, ut forte sit, intuens, advertit vicinum pollici digitum cæruleo et exangui livore rubentem, peritusque cœli illius, 'Ne tu,' inquit,

Rex ad ignem accesseris; nocuit tibi aër, et digitum exanimavit. Sic jam affectum pejus ignis intempestivo calore perdiderit; frigoris lues alio frigore pelfenda est.' Admonitus Rex, primùm se læsum negat, quippe nullo modo doloris sensu tentatus. Sed non diu dubitavit quin rectè moneretur. Nam stupebat rigens digitus, sensumque cum sanguinis calore amiserat. De remedio quærenti, referunt, certam esse et in promtu medicinam, cujus te salubritas brevi quidem, sed acerrimo dolore, insinuet. Id pati oportere, nisi malit intercidere digitum, tam noxia hyeme contactum; allaturque est vas subito, plenum nive, non quidem ad ignem domita, sed per ipsum triclinii teporem jam sensim diffluente. Illo Rex digitum inserere ex præcepto incolarum monetur. Subitoque ingens dolor per torpentes paulo ante articulos pene illius patientiam excussit. Remeantes in digitum sensus documentum primum fuit, quòd doleret. Eo modo Rex incolumis evasit, admonitoque tam inprovisi mali, facilior postea cautio fuit, vel certe medicina quippe, et post, aurem dexteram equitantis, eadem pestis adussit.”

Yours, &c.

J. M.

IT has often surprised us that, although it is so frequently asserted on the authority of Cæsar that ringmoney of iron was current among the Britons, no well-attested discovery of such a kind of money has been noticed in our times. This passage of Cæsar is cited by Sir William Betham as follows,

"utuntur autem nummo aureo aut annulis ferreis ad certum pondus pro nummo;" -but we must point out that there is another accepted reading sanctioned

by the earliest editions, "utuntur aut ære, aut taleis ferreis ad certum pondus examinatis pro nummo,"-which, although it perhaps weakens the testimony as refers to the rings, clearly asserts by the expression talea the nice adjustment of the pieces, and, as also, whatever their form, that they were different from ordinary money; moreover, we think, it is a better text for our author's hypothesis, (which must principally rest on the proof of the nice correspondence of the weight of

the pieces,) that we should read as above, for if 'nummo aureo' be placed in opposition to annulis ferreis pro nummo,' the sense of the assertion would be, that while they employed the rings of iron for the baser species of monetary circulation, coins of gold were used for the more important. "So extensively a commercial people as the Phoenicians, of whom the Celta (Sir William thinks) were unquestionably colonists, could not long carry on their affairs of trade by means of barter and exchange. They would soon feel the necessity for something defined to represent property, and the precious metals would be naturally suggested as the readiest means, and weight would be adopted as the measure. They were in all probability the inventors of ring-money; for they were certainly the first people who carried on an extensive commerce." p. 10.

Gold and silver wire cut into equal lengths, was most probably the first attempt at money, because the pieces could more easily be made of the required weight and value.

Sir William illustrates his notice of the transition from the straight wire to the ring by various wood cuts. The most common form of the smaller gold ring money is found in Ireland. They are made of pieces of gold wire formed into the required thickness, cut into lengths of equal weights, and then bent round into the form represented by Nos. 1, 2, 3, &c. of the specimens.

Counterfeits of these rings are said to be from time to time discovered of the same shape and size, and plated over with gold, so that nothing but the weight could detect the fraud. The brass of which they were composed was a mixture of copper and tin, similar to that of which Celtic weapons are known to be compounded. The smallest of the gold rings weighed 12 grains or a halfpenny weight, and of rings of various weights found, up to the weight of 13 oz. 7 dwts. it is certainly remarkable that with a very trifling variation in one or two of the specimens, ten rings of various weights were found to be multiples of the half dwt.

For a more particular account of the form and various weights of these

rings, we refer the reader to the engravings and list appended to these remarks.

The

The adjustment, ad certum pondus, agreeably to the authority of Cæsar, Sir William affirms was made conformably with the weight known by the moderns as the troy weight; it was, he considers, the old Phoenician mercantile standard weight, which once prevailed throughout the east, was brought to Europe from Palestine and Egypt by the Crusaders, and obtained its present name from the city of Troyes in France, where it was first employed at a great fair. old Celtic unsha was the exact ounce Troy weight. Gold and silver rings are represented as being weighed in the manner of coin on some of the oldest tombs of Thebes. As the Romans divided their libra into twelve unciæ, so did the Greeks their litra; the ratel or litra used in Egypt, is of different quantity in various places, but is always divided into twelve parts. These are curious facts, and might perhaps lead to the true deriva

tion of the word uncia. Pinkerton tells us of some modern Arabian coins in the shape of a hook; and some of the specimens of ring money Sir William has exhibited, may, without any forced conversion, be considered as aduncated. What then if these rings, being parts of the libra, should have conferred the name on the uncia or ounce, from ỏúyêη, uncus, and not from unus, as being one division of twelve. What the author calls the cup we should be disposed to style the hook of the ring-money; and we would further observe, that in the ancient torques, for neck rings and bracelets, their hooked ends are constantly formed precisely similar to the cups of the ring, No. 19. We have little doubt but Sir William is perfectly right in his conjectures relative to this annular money; but we are also of opinion that its form was adopted from ornaments of the person, which had really passed as the means of exchange in the primitive stages of society-thus we know, that in some of the savage states of Africa, a certain number of shells are rated as a knife; that two knives are equal to a brass basin, &c. &c.; a higher advance in monetary representation would proba

bly still preserve the figure in one shape or another of the original circulating medium, or at least its name, as pecunia is derived from pecus.

Just in this way, we believe that the Saxon manca, mancus, or mark, meant originally a manica, manicle, or bracelet for the wrist; thus Elfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, gives "V pundan and L mancuran golder," five pounds and fifty mancuses of gold, to Ceolric, &c.

And this, by the way, we take to be a more correct derivation than that which brings it from the word manucussa, or a piece impressed by a blow of the hand; at any rate, the hint may be worth our author's consideration.

Barbarous nations, whose manners have been little affected by foreign intercourse, are very tenacious of the customs of their ancestors. An accident has furnished Sir William Betham with a remarkable proof that this ring or bracelet-money is current at this day among the natives of Guinea. A vessel going to Africa was wrecked in Ballycotten Bay, near Cork, in the summer of 1836. Some boxes of cast iron pieces were found on board of her, intended for barter, and so exactly similar in form to certain gold specimens found in Ireland, that we need only refer to the wood cuts, Nos. 24 & 25, in this notice, to give a perfect idea of them. Sir William Betham was naturally induced to make further inquiries into this remarkable circumstance, and he received the information from the proprietor of the schooner wrecked as above mentioned, that she was bound to the river Bonney, or New Calabar, which is not far from the kingdom of Benin, that the trade to these rivers was for palm and ivory exchanged for cotton goods, gunpowder, fire-arms, and other articles, together with rings, by the natives called manillas, both of iron and copper, which is the sort of money that they employ in their barter. These manillas are manufactured at Birmingham. Mr. J. Bonomi, who travelled with Lord Prudhoe in Egypt and Nubia, says "So little has the interior of the country changed, that since the days of the Pharaohs to the present, among the inhabitants of Sennar, pieces of gold,

in the form of rings, pass current. The rings of gold are cut through for the convenience of keeping them together. The money is weighed as in the time of Joseph. The weighing of similar rings is said to be represented on certain Egyptian paintings and bas-reliefs. Rings therefore appear to be the money of the two large districts of the African continent, placed on the opposite extremes of East and West, - Nubia and Guinea. The term manilla, by which these monetary articles are known to the natives of Guinea, Sir William Betham is disposed to refer to two Celto-Phoenician words main, riches, patrimony, goods, value, and eallac, cattle, or any species of property. He must pardon us if we here differ from him, and recur to what we have already said relative to these rings being originally ornaments of the person.

We know that the Portuguese discovered the gold coast in the fifteenth century,-manila is in that and the Spanish language the legitimate term for a bracelet, and as both languages are dialects of the Latin, we can seek no further for the etymology of the term than manica, a manu, an ornament worn on the wrist just above the hand.

All the circumstances above detailed tend indeed to suggest that rings originally, whether used as clasps, bracelets, necklaces, chains, or otherwise, became by their portability very natural objects of exchange; that by long use they were at length considered as current money, and were the only compact and summary medium of commerce, with nations of the highest antiquity, before they fell upon the expedient of stamping circular plates of metal. Every inquirer into the primitive customs of mankind must thank Sir William Betham for his highly ingenious remarks and zealous researches on a subject now rendered important to history.

The papers on the affinity of the Celtic and Phoenician languages attempt to demonstrate, by that surest of all philological tests, the correspondence of dialect, the identity of the Celts and Phoenicians. "Arabia Felix, or the kingdom of Yeman, may safely," the author thinks, "be considered as the previous country of the Phoenicians,