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.
[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.
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.