Printed by Nichols, Son, and Bentley,
Red Lion Passage, Fleet Street, London.

REV. ROGERS RUDING, B.D.

VICAR OF MALDON IN SURREY,

F. S. A. AND H. M. A. S. OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE.

It is time to give off Coining if the Walue of Standard
Silver be lessened by it. LOCKE.

THE SECOND EDITION, CORRECTED, ENLARGED, AND
CONTINUED TO THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1818.

IN FIVE VOLUMES, AND A SEPARATE VOLUME OF PLATES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR

LACKINGTON, HUGHES, HARDING, MAVOR, AND JONES,

PREFACE.

To trace the
progress of any art, from its
first rude efforts to an high degree of cultiva-
tion, is an employment which not only gratifies
a laudable curiosity, but also excites the mind
to emulation and energy. It is pleasing to
view, in this manner, the ingenuity of mankind
struggling against, and finally overcoming, the
obstacles which opposed its progress towards
perfection; and the proof, arising from thence,
that taste and skill are to be acquired by unre-
mitting exertions, will not fail to give confidence
to the modest artist.

The particular art which is the subject of this work, now submitted to the public eye, has claims to superlative attention; for none can be either so high or so low as not to be in some degree affected by errors in the practice of it, and its corruption has ever been pointed out as a sure indication of consumption in a state a.

Although it has been constantly practised, by every civilized Nation of the earth, for more than two thousand years, yet, incredible as the

a Cottoni Posthuma, p. 286,

40

assertion may at first sight appear, its theory is even now undetermined and irregular, and varies not only in States which are independent of each other, but also in different parts of the same individual Kingdom.

It is of the highest political importance that these variations should be well understood; for, as it is forcibly observed by Mr. Greaves, "if those advantages which one country may make upon another, in the mystery of exchanges, and valuation of Coins, be not thoroughly discovered and prevented, by such as sit at the helm of the State, it may fare with them, after much commerce, as with some bodies after much food, that, instead of growing full and fat, they may pine away, and fall into an irrecoverable consumption.'

" b

1

The early history of Coinage in these Dominions is involved in much obscurity, and the little which can now be related of it, with certainty, must be gathered chiefly from the specimens which have descended to these times; for the Records respecting it, from Cæsar's discovery of Britain, until the reign of King Henry III., are few and unsatisfactory. The specimens, however, are more numerous, and in general better preserved, than those of almost other art; because the materials of which

any

b Greaves's Works, vol. I. page 337, in his Discourse of the Roman Foot and Denarius.