comes on next Monday, and I hope will go off well. There is nothing particular in prospect, that I am aware of, likely to mar it. Believe me, my dear Sir, Yours very sincerely, J. B. BERGNE. TO J. B. BERGNE, ESQ. Cork, 26th February, 1851. MY DEAR SIR,-Our excellent friend Mr. Cuff, in his letter to me of the 25th January, informing me that my paper appropriating to Edward the Fifth coins of an Edward, with the mint-marks of the boar's head, the sun and rose united, and these two different mint-marks on the same coin, obverse and reverse, had been read on the 23rd at the Numismatic Society, called my attention to page 279 (I think he intended 278,) of Mr. Hawkins's valuable work on the Silver Coinage of England; and in your letter of the 11th of February, you make a similar reference, and further remark, that the doctrine of my appropriation of these coins of Edward the Fifth has been generally accepted in England, and coins with these mintmarks have brought much higher prices than they would have done had they been considered coins of Edward the Fourth. And thus, in your quiet, polished, and official manner, you give the provincial (and Irish provincial to boot) a gentle hint against the presumption of supposing that any thing could have come into his head which was not, and long previously, well-known to the London Justinians of Numismatics! Now, my very good friend, be the credit of this appropriation as small as small may be, I will neither relinquish it, nor share it. Be it a minnow, I claim the sole merit of acting the Triton; albeit my hook may have been only a crooked minikin pin. Mr. Hawkins's work on the Silver Coinage of England, I purchased on its publication, late in A.D. 1841. And at page 200 of the Olla Podrida, printed early in 1844, I paid my humble tribute to its merits. To a person, however, who has been many years collecting, it is necessarily (or rather I should say, naturally), more referred to, than regularly read through. And, until Mr. Cuff's and your referrence to the Appendix on Mint-Marks, I was perfectly ignorant that Mr. Hawkins had, at page 278, suggested, "Is there not then some probability that the coins which have the boar's-head mint-mark, and the name of Edward, were struck by the authority of Edward the Fifth, when Richard the Third was Protector?" And at page 280, Mr. Hawkins thus doubtingly follows up the suggestion of the mint-mark : "Edward the Fifth. "Boar's head? See page 278." Now it is customary, and stands to reason, that an author's deliberate and final conviction and judgment on any fact is given by him in the text and body of his work, and not in a note or appendix. And if we find in the latter matter contrary to the text, we have no doubt that the writer merely states a possibility, in which he had no confidence as an actuality. In the body of Mr. Hawkins's Silver Coinage of the Reign of Edward the Fourth, page 113, which I had read and noted marginally, there is a list of the mint-marks of his (Edward the Fourth's) London groats, among which is— "16. Mint-mark, boar's head, pellet under head. M.B. Very rare." (In my copy I underscored this line, and added in the margin, "Edward the Fifth.") At page 118, we have the consideration, did Edward the Fifth coin money? The whole of which I transcribe : "Edward the Fifth, 1483. "Short as was the reign of this young King, coins are said to have been issued in his name and by his authority; none, however, known to have been his have come down to us; and it is more than probable that none were ever struck, or, if they were, that they were struck from dies of his father's coins." Thus in 1841, Mr. Hawkins appropriates the Edward groat, boar's head mint-mark, to Edward the Fourth, and thinks it more than probable that Edward the Fifth did not coin. And down to this time, A.D. 1851, though he has continued at the head of the British Museum Collection, and is one of the great pillars of the Numismatic Society, he has not (the only mode by which we residents of Nova Zembla could be enlightened) published any thing further on this subject; and we have, therefore, no ground for supposing the ten years' consideration have brought any conviction to him that the appendix conjecture, at page 278 of his Silver Coinage, was a fact. Nor, as far as I am aware, has any other author, or writer on English numismatics, either touched on the question as from himself, or referred to Mr. Hawkins's probability. It is true, as you remark, that at some sales, coins with these mint-marks have brought higher prices than the common run of Edward the Fourth's, and in some catalogues they are even referred to as Edward the Fifth's. But when so, invariably with the note of doubt, "Edward the Fifth ? And at the recent sale of the Rev. Dr. Neligan's coins, though the gentleman who catalogued them gave a lot as Edward the Fifth, he added, that he did so, only, as the Cork Numismatists (and not himself) considered them to be Edward the Fifth's.* The cataloguers (in other cases), unknown and irresponsible to the public, put forward what they admit to be a doubtful suggestion, to raise the value of the article under sale; but they have never referred to any authority, in any instance, but in Dr. Neligan's, and then virtually adding that the writer did not concur in the appropriation. Still, you will say, that the coins with the boar's head brought high prices. Granted for Mr. Hawkins, "ex cathedrâ," had authoritatively pronounced, that on Edward the Fourth's coins the boar's head mint-mark is "very rare." And you must well know what increased cost these two little words, "very rare," will add to a coin. Subjected to this blow pipe, have you not sometimes found the tiniest bit of metal, though very enticing, and much coveted, too hot to hold? Rarity, therefore, will sufficiently account for their bringing high prices, though considered as coins of Edward the Fourth. * Sale of coins, Jan. 15th, 1851. Lot 83.-Edward the Fifth groats, two, London. Obv. mint-mark, boar's head; rev. mint-mark, rose, fine; obv. mint-mark, rose; rev. the same; much clipped, both very rare. The Cork antiquaries say that these two coins decidedly belong to Edward the Fifth? for that reason they are so described here.-Extract from my sale of coins, lot 83. The catalogue was made by Mr. Webster.-W. C. NELIGAN. You have shewn, nevertheless, (of which I was ignorant,) that from 1841 there has been a floating suggestion, that they might belong to Edward the Fifth. But what has been the practical effect? Did the British Museum, yourself, Mr. Cuff, Rev. Mr. Martin, Rev. Mr. Sheppard, Sahib Singh Sparkes, Mr. Wigan, or any other of the great English collectors, with whom price has no consideration, where rarity is in the market, did you or they buy these coins as Edward the Fifth's? and having so bought them, have they taken place in the cabinet as Edward the Fifth's? I have neither seen nor heard of their being so placed and so designated in any of your collections hitherto, And, until my paper was read at the Numismatic, I believe no collector has placed his hand and seal to a document asserting that these coins were struck in the reign of Edward the Fifth. If such is the case, by the law of the land as being the first to publish, I am entitled to all the honour (such as it is) of making "the discovery." At the same time, while the law is with me, the equity may be with you English collectors? You may long since have arrived at the same conclusion; for you had the materials much more abundantly to work from, than we, in these rocky and barren mountains. But if you did strike the light, you have carefully and jealously preserved it, for your own sole and private uses, in a special patent dark lantern, and debarred the Numismatic World at large of all knowledge of the fact, and of all participation of the benefit of your learning! Believe me to remain, my dear Sir, yours truly, RICHARD SAINTHILL. P.S. Please to send this letter on to Mr. Cuff. In a packet of coins sent me by my cousin, Lieut. Rd. Sainthill, R.N. from Jersey, and collected there from the circulating currency, was a piece of copper 1 inch diameter, and weighing 7 dwts. 2 grains, with the arms of France and England (as depicted above), which have been engraved by cutting away the surface with a graver, and not struck up in a die, with three herons outside the top and sides of the shield. These birds induced me to suppose that the article was a badge of the king's falconer, and the unlimited number of fleurs-de-lis carried back the era of its manufacture to Edward the Third, Richard the Second, or the early part of Henry the Fourth's reign. On transmitting an impression of the wood-cut to my friend, James Pulman, Esq. then Norroy, and now Clarenceux King of Arms, I am thus informed of the proper appropriation of this curious relic of the olden time: "The arms on the badge are those of Thomas of Woodstock Duke of Gloucester, sixth and youngest son of Edward the Third, or those of Humphrey Plantagenet, Earl of Buckingham, his son: viz.-Quarterly, semé of France, and England, within a bordure argent. "Heralds' College, London, July 12, 1847." VOL. II. |