of St. John at Jerusalem. In 1390, 1437, 1441, 1459, 1497, 1505, 1508, and 1515, several other houses were dissolved, and their revenues settled on different colleges in Oxford and Cambridge. Soon after the last period Cardinal Wolsey, by license of the king and pope, obtained a dissolution of above thirty religious houses for the founding and endowing his colleges at Oxford and Ipswich. About the same time a bull was granted by the pope to cardinal Wolsey to suppress monasteries where there were not above six monks, to the value of 8000 ducats a year, for endowing Windsor and King's College, Cambridge; and two other bulls were granted to cardinals Wolsey and Campeius, where there were less than twelve monks, and to annex them to the greater monasteries; and another bull to the same cardinals to enquire about abbeys to be suppressed in order to be made cathedrals. Although nothing appears to have been done, in consequence of these bulls, the motive which induced Wolsey and many others to suppress these houses was the desire of promoting learning: and archbishop Cranmer engaged in it with a view of carrying on the Reformation. There were other causes that concurred to bring on their ruin many of the religious were loose and vicious; the monks were generally thought to be in their hearts attached to the pope's supremacy; their revenues were not employed according to the intent of the donors; many cheats in images, feigned miracles, and counterfeit relics, had been discovered; the observant friars had opposed the king's divorce from queen Catharine; and these circumstances operated, in concurrence with the king's want of a supply and the people's desire to save their money, to forward a motion in parliament, that, in order to support the king's state, and supply his wants, all the religious houses might be conferred upon the crown which were not able to spend above £200 a year; and an act was passed for that purpose 27 Hen. VIII. c. 28. By this act about 380 houses were dissolved, and a revenue of £30,000 or £32,000 a year came to the crown; besides about £100,000 in plate and jewels. The suppression of these houses occasioned discontent, and at length an open rebellion: when this was appeased, the king resolved to suppress the rest of the monasteries, and appointed a new visitation; which caused the greater abbeys to be surrendered; and it was enacted by 31 Hen. VIII. c. 13 that all monasteries, &c., which had been surrendered since the 4th of February in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, and which hereafter shall be surrendered, shall be vested in the king. The knights of St. John of Jerusalem were also suppressed by the 32 Hen. VIII. c. 24. The suppression of these greater houses by these two acts produced a revenue to the king of above £100,000 a year, besides a large sum in plate and jewels. The last act of dissolution in this king's reign was the act of 37 Hen. VIII. c. 4 for dissolving colleges, free chapels, chantries, &c., which act was farther enforced by 1 Ed. VI. c. 14. By this act were suppressed ninety colleges, 110 hospitals, and 2374 chantries and free chapels. The number of houses and places suppressed from first to last, so far

as any calculations appear to have been made, has been estimated at 3182; besides many others of inferior rank, of which no account was kept. The total annual revenue of these is estimated at no less that £140,784 19s. 3§d, all of which, besides a vast quantity of silver plate, came into the king's hands. The total number of persons contained in these houses is estimated at 50,000. As there were pensions paid to almost all those of the greater monasteries, the king did not immediately come into the full enjoyment of their whole revenues: however, by means of what he did receive, he founded six new bishoprics, viz. those of Westminster (which was changed by queen Elizabeth into a deanery, with twelve prebends and a school), Peterborough, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, and Oxford. And in eight other sees he founded deaneries and chapters, by converting the priors and monks into deans and prebendaries, viz. Canterbury, Winchester, Durham, Worcester, Rochester, Norwich, Ely, and Carlisle. He founded also the colleges of Christchurch in Oxford, and Trinity in Cambridge, and finished King's College there. He likewise founded professorships of divinity, law, physic, and of the Hebrew and Greek tongues, in both the said universities. He gave the house of Gray-friars and St. Bartholomew's hospital to the city of London, and a perpetual pension to the poor knights of Windsor, and laid out great sums in building and fortifying many ports in the channel. It is observable, upon the whole, that the dissolution of these houses was an act, not of the church, but of the state; in the period preceding the Reformation, by a king and parliament of the Roman Catholic communion, in all points except the king's supremacy; and an act to which the pope himself, by his bulls and licenses, had led the way. See MONK.

MONASTIR, Toli, or Bistolia, a considerable town of Greece, in Macedon, situated on the slope of a hill; watered by the Vistritza, or Hebrus. It is inhabited by the descendants of Bulgarians; and, though nearly 100 miles from the sea, may, when compared with most other towns in this country, be called rich and commercial. Population 15,000. Ali Pacha took forcible possession of this town, carrying away the most valuable property of the inhabitants; but it is still a flourishing place. It is ninety-five miles W. N. W. of Salonica.

MONAVAR, a town of Spain, in Valencia, twenty miles west of Alicant. It contains 8000 inhabitants, who manufacture some linen.

MONBÓDDO (James Burnet), lord, an eminent Scottish judge, descended of an ancient family in Kincardineshire. He was born in 1714, and educated at one of the Scotch universities, at a period when an enthusiastic admiration of the classical 'iterature of Greece and Rome was very predominant. Having gone through the usual course of studies preparatory to the profession of a lawyer with ancommon diligence, he was admitted a member of the faculty of advocates in 1737; and, in 1767, was appointed one of the senators of the college of justice; an office which he discharged with assiduity, integrity, and ability. He married Miss Farquarson, by whom he had one son and two daughters, all

of whom died before him, except the eldest, who was married to Kirkpatrick Williamson, esq. He had the offer of a seat in the court of justiciary, but refused it, as its additional duties would have detached him too much from his favorite literary studies. The course of these, and his particular habits of thinking, led him to entertain a most enthusiastic veneration for the wisdom and learning of the ancients, and a proportional degree of contempt for those of the moderns. The first evidence he gave to the public of this admiration of ancient authors was in his work of the Origin and Progress of Language; the first volume of which was published at Edinburgh in 4to. 1772. This and the subsequent volumes were perused by critics with sentiments of mingled respect, indignation, and ridicule. Together with the philosophical history of language, his plan included that of civilisation and science; upon all of which he advanced opinions equally singular and whimsical. Those who were partial to modern literature, or were strangers to the deeper mysteries of Greek erudition, condemned his lordship's work with the most severe censures. The Scottish literati, almost to a man, declared it to be unworthy of perusal, unless as a piece of amusement from its ridiculous absurdity. In England, however, its reception was somewhat more favorable;

Ee'n then did Albion's heedless sons submit, And Scottish taste decided English wit.

In the late Mr. Harris of Malmesbury ord Monboddo found an admirer and correspondent, who was equally well acquainted with Grecian learning and philosophy, and who had cultivated these branches of science with equal ardor as himself. During the vacations of the court of session lord Monboddo retired every spring and autumn to his seat of Monboddo, where he usually lived in a style of the most primitive simplicity, dressed in the habit of a country farmer, in coarse cloth of Scotch manufacture. Among his tenants he lived familiarly like the kind father of a large family. His patrimonial estate did not afford above £300 a year; yet he never raised their rents, but reckoned the chief improvement of an estate to consist in the increase of the number and happiness of its inhabitants. It was in this patriarchal retreat in the Mearns that he had the pleasure of a visit from the celebrated Dr. Johnson, and his friend Mr. Boswell. To vindicate the honor of the ancients, and the principles of the Grecian philosophy, more fully than he had done in his former work, lord Monboddo published another 4to. volume, entitled Ancient Metaphysics, which was much more favorably received than the former. Naturally endued with a good constitution, which was strengthened by air, exercise, and temperance, he prolonged his life till the eighty-fifth year; and died in Edinburgh on Sunday the 26th May, 1799.

MONCHABOO, a city of the Birman empire, and during a short period its capital, is surrounded by a wall of brick and mud, about twenty feet high by twelve feet thick, and surrounded by ditch. It is a regular square, of almost 1000

paces on each side. It derives its fame from being the birth place of the emperor Alompra, founder of the reigning dynasty, and is situated fifty miles north of Ummerapoora, and twelve miles north of the Irrawuddy River. Inhabitants 4000. Long 96° 20′ E., lat. 22° 46′ N.

MONCHIQUE, a town of Portugal, in Algarva, at the foot of a ridge of mountains. Population 4800. Fifteen miles west of Silves.

MONCRIF (Francis Augustin Paradis, De), secretary to count Clermont, one of the forty of the French academy, and a member of the academies of Nanci and Berlin, was born in Paris in 1687, and died there November 12th 1770, aged eighty-three. His principal works are, 1. Essai sur la Necessité et sur les moyens de plaire, in 12mo. 2. Les Ames Rivales, a romance. 3. The Abderites, a comedy; 4. Poesies Diverses, and some dissertations, published at Paris 1743, in 12mo. He also cultivated lyric poetry, and wrote, 5. L'Empire de l'Amour, a ballad; 6. Tropheé; 7. Ames reunis, a ballad; and 8. Erosine, a heroic pastoral. 9. L' Histoire des Chats. His works were collected, in 1761, in 4 vols. 12mo.

MONDARDIER, a town of France in the department of the Gard, to the south of Vigan. It consists, in fact, of three adjacent villages. Population 2500.

MONDAY is so called as being anciently sacred to the Moon, or to Mona, the Diana of the Saxons.

MONDEGO, a river of Portugal, in Beira, which rises in the Sierra de Estrella, flowing westward, and falls into the Atlantic at Buarcos. It is navigable to a considerable distance from mouth, and its banks were the scene of important military movements of the British and French in September 1810, and in March 1811.

MONDEGO, or Embotetieu, a river of Paraguay, in South America, which enters the great river Paraguay, or La Plata, in lat. 20° 30' S.

MONDOVI, a town and province of Piedmont, situated on the river Ellero. The town at some distance is picturesque in its appearance but loses much of its interest by contrast with the surrounding Alps. It is divided into the Town Proper, or Piazza, situated on a mountain, at an elevation of 1700 feet above the level of the sea, surrounded with feeble walls, and the three suburbs, Carassone, Bred, and Piano della Valle. The distance between the upper and lower part of the town is considerable. Beside a small citadel, Mondovi Proper contains a great number of churches and religious houses, and its inhabitants are chiefly clergy and country gentry. The suburbs, on the contrary, are entirely given to trade. Here are manufactures of woollen and muslin, tanneries and iron forges; but the chief branch of industry is the spinning of silk. The total population is about 20,000. It is the see of a bishop, and of several seminaries. Mondovi is comparatively modern, having been founded in the year 1232. On the 22d of April, 1796, Buonaparte obtained here a victory over the Piedmontese, which led the court of Turin to separate from Austria. In 1799 the Piedmontese peasants assembled here to the number of 40,000, to intercept the retreat of the French, who on a slight

alarm of their attempting to assassinate some officers began an indiscriminate butchery of the people, and pillaged the town. Here Beccaria first drew breath. Fifteen miles E. N. E. of Coni, and forty-five S. S. E, of Turin.

MONDRAGON, a town of Spain, in Guipuzcoa, on the river Deva, thirty miles S. S. W. of Sebastian. Three miles off is a mine of excellent iron and native steel, from which were made the famous sword-blades of Toledo and Salamanca, as well as those so long in repute as blades, and called Ferrara, from the name of the celebrated Andrew Ferrara.

MONETARIUS, or MONEYER, a name which antiquaries and medalists give to those who struck the ancient coins or monies. Many of the old Roman coins have the name of the monetarius, either at length, or at least his initial letters. See NUMISMATOGRAPHY.

MONETARY ART. The object of coinage is commercial convenience; in the accomplishment of which the protection of the ignorant and unsuspecting from unfair and fraudulent imitations is the chief, if not the only, difficulty. Direct barter was the first mode of commerce; then various imperfect media received by general consent at a determinate value; and which were often the necessaries of life (see our article COINS); then the precious metals, where they were known, unwrought, as Mr. Turner contends was the case with regard to gold, as a medium of commerce, with our Anglo-Saxon ancestors; then a piece of metal stamped or coined by public authority. It is to be remarked, however, that in commercial affairs considered on a large scale, or as embracing the intercourse of all civilised nations, the last coutrivance is not to be regarded as that real progressive step, or improvement, that it truly is with respect to the internal commerce of a nation. That is, the chief object of a good coinage is to mark the genuineness, the ascertained weight and purity, of the money coined; in other words, to bring it back in the public estimation to the penultimate step of commercial media to which we have adverted. What is called the standard of fineness in all the civilised countries of the world is well known to the bullion merchants and other large traders interested in the transactions proceeding between them; and, while the known portion of alloy is used to make the precious metal employed more serviceable as a coin, that very service is in fact only a method of recording the quantity of bullion used; so that the metal, considered as unalloyed and unwrought, is obviously the standard of value. This simple view of the limits of the use of coinage we apprehend to be absolutely necessary for the rectification of some serious errors respecting it, which have their advocates in modern times. It is, in fact, as a medium of domestic commerce that coined money is chiefly beneficial, or of any comparative importance to mankind.

We are happy to find so able a judge as Mr. Ruding confirming this view of the subject in the conclusion of his valuable Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain. He adds a further consideration in confirmation of the necessity of limiting our ideas of the application of this art,

which cannot be better expressed than in his own words. The theory of coinage,' he says, 'must be simplified, by casting out of it the consideration of the manner in which our money will be received by neighbouring nations. For they will take it only as bullion, and if the balance of trade be against us, and must be made good by gold and silver, it is most expedient that it should be done by the plain metal, which will cost nothing in the coinage.'

The king of England, as the head of the executive government, has always claimed the prerogative both of coining money, and of regulating the rate at which foreign coin is to be received. Since the reign of Henry VII. our kings have not often exercised this prerogative without consulting parliament, though it appears doubtful whether they have not a legal right so to do and a royal proclamation is always the instrument whereby (Hale's Pleas of the Crown, vol. ii. p. 197),

Foreign coin is legitimated and made current : Base coin, or coin of a standard below sterling is legitimated:

Toinhanse' any coin already current to a higher denomination: and

To decry any coin that is current in usuage or payment.

Blackstone quotes a dictum of Sir Edward Coke, according to which the money of England must be either gold or silver;' for at the period when the latter wrote, copper had never been issued by our monarchs. This was first the case in the copper coinage of 1672 under Charles II.

The Anglo-Saxons coined silver and brass; but, the Norman monarchs rejecting the latter, silver became for a long period the sole material of coinage; indeed until gold was introduced into the mint by Henry III. No half-pennies or farthings are known of any of the AngloNorman monarchs before Edward I., but silver pieces of this value continued to be coined at intervals from this period until the reign of Edward VI. To supply their place, when their small size caused them to be discontinued, James I. directed farthing tokens of brass and copper to be struck, out these were of such inferior value as soon to fall into utter contempt and disuse. The commencement of the regular copper coinage must be dated in the year above mentioned, viz. 1672.

Tin was also coined by Charles II. in 1684.

His ill-fated successor James II. endeavoured to give currency to metals still less valuable, i.e. gun-metal and pewter; but the projector of a coinage of this description was ruined by the first adventure, and the attempt was not repeated.

The precious metals have been then for ages the chief materials of coinage. Of an intrinsic worth, compact, divisible, and durable, they seem by the common consent of mankind to be best calculated for the ordinary purposes of a currency; they possess, however, other properties which become a draw-back upon them. Their value as bullion is perpetually fluctuating; it often varies sufficiently to render the temptation to melt them down irresistible; and it al

ways affords a considerable inducement to the issuer of counterfeits and the clipper of coin. The first of these disadvantages is perhaps the greatest, as before its mighty influence the greatest part both of our gold and silver coinage is regularly swept away. It results, however, from the intrinsic and inherent value of the materials in question; and as it has been truly observed, 'can only be palliated but not absolutely removed.'

There is only one instance in history of a nation endeavouring to meet this disadvantage of the intrinsic value of a coinage by rendering it useless for other purposes; that is, the well known Spartan one, in which Lycurgus ordered the iron coins to be quenched in vinegar. But this was a failure: it utterly precluded in their case intercourse with the neighbouring states; and the Spartans had no other medium of exchange. This by no means demonstrates, however, the fallacy of the principle on which that great lawgiver acted; especially with relation to internal commerce.

Our article Coins will be found to contain ample tables of all the existing gold and silver money of the commercial world, together with rules for standarding gold and silver. It is admitted throughout the scientific world that we have carried the art of coinage to its highest perfection in this country. The crowns and halfcrowns of the Protectorate, for instance, will advantageously sustain comparison with any existing French coins. This has especially been the case since the year 1815, and under the new constitution of the MINT. This we have also exhibited in the article of that name: we therefore propose in this paper to advert briefly to the supply of bullion to that important establishment, and to give as detailed an account of the machinery and methods of the coinage as our limits will admit.

SECT I. HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE SUPPLY OF BULLION TO THE MINT.

Strabo and Tacitus enumerate gold and silver as among the products of this island; and some writers have conjectured that Roman mints were worked here with the supplies they afforded. This seems to be, however, altogether doubtful. Silver is found only impregnating our lead ores; but the working of mines of either metal has been long unknown to our history: the common law may very harmlessly, therefore, give all mines of these metals, as we believe it does, to the king. But so late as 1 Wil. & Mary some disputes it appears arose which rendered a declaratory statute on this subject necessary. It was at this period therefore enacted that no mines of base metal should be considered as royal, notwithstanding gold or silver might be extracted from them in any quantities; but that the king, or persons claiming royal mines under his authority, should have the ore (other than tin ore in the counties of Devon or Cornwall), paying for the same a price stated in the latter of those acts.- Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. I. p. 294. The earliest instance which Mr. Ruding finds of the claim to a mine royal being enforced occurs in the forty-seventh year of Henry III.,

at which time a writ was directed to the sheriff of Devonshire, in which it was stated that the king had been given to understand that there were within his county aurifodina et cuprifodinoe, that is, mines containing gold together with copper, and he was commanded not to permit any one to occupy the same until the king should have provided that which the law required to be done. His successor Edward I., we are told, received great help towards the maintenance of his wars, and other charges, from the silver mines which, in his days, were found in Devonshire. In the accounts of William de Wymondham, warden of the mint, it appears that, between the 12th of August and the 31st of October, in the twenty-second year of his reign, there was tried and fined out, at Martinstowe in that county, by times, so much of fine silver as amounted to 370 lbs. weight. In the next year £521 10s. were fined at the same place, and brought to London.

In the year 1296, 337 miners were brought hither from the Wapentake of the Peak in Derbyshire, who fined and cast into wedges, in the course of that year, £704 3s. 1d. From September 30th to November 6th in the same year there were received into the mint, from the king's mines, £709 10s. 4}d.-Mint Accounts in the Exchequer. In the next year 348 miners were brought from the same place, and to them were added twenty-five from Wales, besides others of the county of Devon and other places. William de Aulton, clerk, keeper of the king's mines in Devonshire and Cornwall, was accomptant of the issues and profits of the king's mines there from March 4th 1298 to April 18th 1299, and yielded up his account both of silver and lead; which seems distinctly to prove that the silver was the produce of lead mines rich in that metal.

In the early part of this reign, according afforded silver were supposed to be sufficiently to Mr. Ruding, the mines in Ireland which rich to merit the attention of government. The king, therefore, in a writ directed to Robert de Offerd, justiciary of Ireland, and the bishop of Waterford, his treasurer there, stated that he was certainly informed that mines of silver were found in that country, of which considerable profit might be made, and commanded those persons to cause such mines to be opened and worked, in any way that to their judgment should seem expedient. The mint, however, did not depend solely upon these mines for a supply of metal. From an account of the same William de Wymondham, it appears that foreign bullion was purchased to a considerable amount.

During the reign of Edward II. silver was still brought to the mint from the royal mines, and that which was purchased was distinguished by the names of argentum cismarinum, transmarinum, and billon. These terms continued to be used in the reign of Edward III., after which we do not meet with them. In his twelfth year he granted, and in his fifteenth year confirmed, by statute, free liberty to all persons to dig within their own soil for mines of gold and silver, and for hid treasure, under the inspection of clerks to be appointed for that purpose, on condition

that all the silver so found should be carried to the mint to be coined there, at their cost, and that one-third of the money so struck should remain to the king, and two-thirds to the owner of the soil and that all the gold should be brought to the exchequer, at their expense, one moiety thereof to be retained for the king's use, and the other moiety to be retained to the said owner of the soil. But if they should neglect to dig for the said mines, &c., then the king and his heirs to have power to do it, without hindrance from any one.

In the eighteenth year of Edward III. is found the first entry of gold, brought into the mint for the purposes of coinage, which remains upon record. It consisted either of foreign coins, or of bullion purchased for the mint, or sent hither by merchants to be coined; but the author of the annals of the coinage has not met with any instance where that metal is entered as the produce of the royal mines.

In the reign of James I. Sir Hugh Middleton discovered those lead mines of Cardiganshire, from which silver has ever since been extracted with some success.

It was discovered at an early period that working mines on the king's account was unprofitable; such as were claimed were therefore, so far back as the fourteenth century, leased out to different persons, reserving certain portions of the produce for the purposes of the mint; sometimes they were obliged to bring the whole thither. Mr. Ruding gives a table too long to extract of these curious transactions.

In order to facilitate the working of these mines the lessees were sometimes authorised to take a certain number of workmen, wheresoever they should find them, within the county wherein the mines were situated. They had power also over their laborers, &c., to exercise justice in all pleas, except those of land, life, or limb; and if any offended so that they ought to be imprisoned, then the patentees or lessees were authorised to arrest and lodge them in the next jail, there to be detained until they should be released by them. As the claim of the crown respecting mines royal was but ill defined, an attempt was made in the fifteenth year of Charles II. to pass a statute for the purpose of ascertaining it more clearly; but after the bill was read a second time, and the amendments of the committee to which it was referred were reported, it seems to have been dropped, as no farther proceedings are to be found; and the claim remained in its unsettled state, until it was finally determined by the 1st and 5th of William and Mary, which have been already recited.

But the supply of the mint,' adds this writer, with bullion was in early times considered to be a circumstance of too much importance to be trusted to natural means alone; and the aid of alchymy was therefore resorted to for that purpose. Thus the gold, of which the nobles of Edward III. were formed, is said to have been produced by Raymond Lully. Ashmole, in his Notes upon Norton's Ordinall, and Hermes Bird, has given a very circumstantial account of the bringing of Lully into England by Cremer, abbot of Westminster; of his agreeing

to make the king rich by his art, in consequence of that monarch's promise to enter into a war against the Turks; of his refusal to work any longer, when he found that Edward would not keep that promise; and of his being clapt up in the tower in consequence. The gold, he says, is affirmed (by an unwritten verity) to have been made by Raymond Lully, in the Tower of London; and, besides the tradition, the inscription is some proof; for, upon the reverse is a cross fleury, with Lioneux, inscribed, Jesus autem transiens per medium eorum ibat;' that is as Jesus passed invisible, and in most secret manner, by the midst of the Pharisees, so that gold was made by invisible and secret art amidst the ignorant.'

'That Edward was, in some degree, a believer in the powers of alchymy, and therefore not improbably the dupe of Lully, will, I think, appear from the following record. The Patent Roll of his third year states, that the king had been given to understand that John le Rous and Master William de Dalby could make silver by art of alkemony; that they had heretofore made it, and still did make it; and that by such making of that metal they could greatly profit the realm: he therefore commanded Thomas Cary to find them out, and to bring them before the king, with all the instruments, &c., belonging to the said art. If they would come willingly, they were to be brought safely and honorably; but, if not, they were to be seized, and brought be fore the king wherever he might be. All sheriffs, &c., were commanded to assist the said Thomas Carey. This belief in the creation, or, at least, transmutation of metals, was in the reign of Henry IV. so firmly established, that we find in his fifth year a statute which solemnly ordained and established that none from henceforth shall use to multiply gold or silver, nor use the craft of multiplication; and if any the same do, that he incur the pain of felony in this case.

'In consequence of the restraint which this statute imposed upon the operations of alchymy, John Cobbe, in the twenty-second year of Henry VI. presented a petition to the king, in which he stated, that he was desirous of operating upon certain materials, by art philosophical, viz. to transubstantiate the inferior metals, by the said art, into perfect gold and silver, so as to endure every trial; but that certain persons had suspected this to be done by art unlawful, and therefore had power to hinder and disturb him in giving proof of it. His majesty, having considered the premises, and being willing to see the conclusion of the said operation, granted, of his special grace, license to the said John to practise the said art in future, without molestation from any of his officers; provided always that it was not contrary to law. Soon after this, however, his majesty's curiosity became too impatient to endure the restraint of statutes, and he granted licenses of the same kind to various persons to carry on their operations, notwithstanding any statute, act, ordinance, or provision to the contrary.

In his thirty-fifth year he appointed, by letters patent, commissioners to enquire into the truth of this art, by the professors of which he had