Member for Oxford and the Member for Dover, had held other offices with the Mastership of the Mint; but when the right honourable gentleman was appointed Master without any additional office the public had a right to expect that his undivided attention should be given to the concerns of the Mint, and, having such assistance and information as was necessary to guide his judgment, the right honourable gentleman ought himself to have conducted the investigation if it was required, which he did not deny. He must say also that to send to India for a Commissioner, in order to place him in a position of that kind in this country, did appear to him a piece of extravagance for which he could not account.

SIR J. TYRELL believed that all the information and experience Colonel Forbes might have derived of the practice of the Mint was derived from the Mint of this country, and he doubted very much whether the people here would be satisfied with such coinage as he had seen from the Mint of India.*

On a subsequent occasion another reference was made in the House of Commons to this subject, but, not having the newspaper that reported the conversation, I can only state, from recollection, that some honourable Member, of course not connected with the Government, proposed that the sum of £1,800, which was to be paid Colonel Forbes, should be deducted from Mr. Sheil's salary as Master of the Mint (the salary of the Master of the Mint

*The first piece of the new coinage of the East India Company which was seen, or at least noticed, in Cork was a half-rupee of " William IIII. King." which was tendered among other silver in a payment at the Cork Branch of the Bank of Ireland, and refused by the clerk at the counter as a forgery. Fortunately Mr. W. W. Leycester happened to be in the Bank, who, by giving a current shilling for it, relieved its owner from the charge of "uttering false coin," bad though it certainly was.

VOL. II.

for the year ended 31 March, 1848, was £2,000.-See Report of Commissioners on the Mint, App. p. 124), which would still leave Mr. S. very well paid for doing nothing. Philosophers tell us that nature abhors a vacuum, and Mr. Sheil's pocket was no exception to the universal law. So the Treasury Bench came to his rescue, having a working majority, and the re-fund was re-fused; but the thing was "too bad," and the exposure "too sad," and a vacancy being made, or opportunely occurring, Mr. Sheil retired from the Mint, and became our Minister to some petty potentate in Italy (the Grand Duke of Tuscany, if I remember right), and there in the congenially happy, moral, and mental characteristic of climate and people, " dolce far niente" (delightful idleness), he ended his days. Many a King Log preceded Mr. Sheil as Master of the Mint; they were contented to settle down on the fat ooze and imbibe the golden mud; but Mr. Sheil was a moving log, obstructing those who endeavoured to advance, and damaging whatever he came in contact with. Let us hope we have embalmed the last specimen of this species, the Xpuolenyos, or Xpvowρoonτos, or Goldsucker, of Russell.

I have to express my obligation to my excellent friend the Very Reverend the Dean of Clanmacnoise, for the paper he kindly wrote, at my request, to elucidate the double-headed medal (see page 365).

Also to my valued friend B. Nightingale, Esq. for permission to re-print, at page 360, one of his very in

teresting papers respecting Thomas Simon, by which so much important information has been communicated, and so much misapprehension removed, respecting our great engraver.

To the Rev. Dr. Bandinel, of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and to W. S. W. Vaux, Esq. of the British Museum, London, I am extremely thankful for their assistance in translating for me two Cufic double dinars (see page 114), the inscriptions on which are peculiar and interesting. My application to Dr. Bandinel has elicited the information that the coin supposed to have been copied by Wise from Gagnier (see Marsden, vol. i. page 191), was engraved by Wise from the Bodleian Collection, where it still remains; and this reference having called Dr. Bandinel's attention to it, his numismatic sagacity has cleared up the difficulty of its date, by which Marsden was so puzzled.

The delay in the publication of these papers, and the consequent enlargement of the volume, has entailed heavier demands on Dr. A. Smith's time and pencil. If the motto to his armorial bearings spoke the nature of their owner, it would read, "Melius est dare quam accipere;" and, fully conscious how much this work is indebted to his admirable delineation of the coins, I can only repeat how deeply I feel obliged by a kindness always ready, always willing, and never tiring.

I have also again to return my best thanks to my good friend John Gough Nichols, Esq. F.S.A. for his

unwearied and unceasing attention to this as to the former volume in its progress through the press. Had it been his own "literary child" he could not have bestowed a more parental watch and ward over its welfare; and very different would have been the appearance my poor bantling but for his "labours of love" on its behalf.

of

To my Niece, to Crofton Croker, and to Leonard Wyon I am indebted for the communication of papers which will diversify the materials composing this "Olla," rendering it less heavy and, I would hope, more palatable.

As these sheets have passed through the press I have observed in the critical notices of medals an occasional recurrence of the same expressions. It will however be remembered that the papers were written at distant intervals, and without any reference to preceding remarks, consequently that my opinion at the moment would naturally be given in the terms that most clearly or readily expressed what I then thought. So, at the risk perhaps of somewhat offending the ear, I think it safest to let my first impressions remain in my first words.

Happening to look over a small work published on the Restoration of Louis the Eighteenth, A.D. 1814, by a partisan of the Bourbons, entitled "L'Ogre de Corse," and observing in the collection of "Ogriana," or sayings of Napoleon, at the conclusion, one of the Emperor's to his brother Jerome, whom he had made King

of Westphalia-"Si la Majesté des Rois, se trouve empreinte sur leur front, disait-il à Jérôme, vous pouvez voyager incognito, vous ne serez point découvert "-I was struck with the coincidence of opinion on this subject

66

respecting mon oncle Jerome," by my, fair correspondent at Paris, 11th June, 1853 (see page 291), and "mon oncle Napoleon."

While this volume was printing I was at length gladdened by the publication of Mr. Lindsay's long-hopedfor work on the Parthian history and coinage, of which a very imperfect and inadequate notice will be found at p. 347. I take credit to myself for having unceasingly worried my good friend (I can use no milder term consistent with truth) these many years to give the numismatic world the benefit of his knowledge on this obscure, bewildering, and consequently repelling series; and I therefore book "my gentle public" pretty heavily my debtors for its publication.

Referring to Mr. Lindsay's work, Plate 4, Coin 87, which is described at page 173 as a drachm of Arsaces 27th (Vologeses 2nd), the first line of the legend of which is in "unknown characters," and which characters appear on several of the coins of the subsequent kings, I may state that impressions and casts from the most perfect of these inscriptions were sent by Mr. Lindsay and the writer to various oriental scholars and numismatists at home and abroad, but no information was obtained. Since the publication however of the " Coinage of the Parthians" that