exceeded that, of again acquiring luxurious habits, which it had cost me so much to get rid of; for that reason I put the first five shillings into the bank, and have added to it weekly, with very few omissions, ever since. I will not deny that, with the gradual increase of my little hoard, a new prospect has opened for me, and that I only wait for the possession of a certain amount to begin business in the market upon a more respectable footing, which will allow me to dispense with my midnight labours.'

Here he ceased; and soon after arriving at the corner of the street in which was my own home, I bade him good-morning; and wishing a speedy and prosperous result to his economic endeavours, parted with the mushroom-hunter.

HISTORY OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND.* A WORK with this title has come under our notice, which is full both of amusement and instruction-amusement even of a romantic character, and instruction of that kind which operates upon the mind rather by suggestive facts than dry reflection. We propose running through the volumes in such a way as to collect some general and popular idea of the history of the great institution referred to; and we shall thus be able to afford a better notion of the varied contents of the work than we could hope to give by means of the scanty extracts to which our space would limit us.

During the Civil War, when our merchants were unwilling to be robbed for the good of the state, they were in the habit of keeping their treasure in their own houses under lock and key. But their servants and apprentices were sometimes of a more patriotic character. Nothing would satisfy them but a share of the blows that were going; and in order to be able to serve their country, they made no scruple of carrying off the money intrusted to their guardianship. In such cases it usually happened that they were never more heard of. This made the merchants who had still anything to lose, and the servants who were honest, and still trusted, very uneasy under such a charge; and it became the custom, for the sake of security, to lend whatever money was not in use to the wealthy goldsmiths. The rich were glad to make the deposit without interest; but more necessitous persons received fourpence per cent. per diem, and the goldsmithis realised a handsome profit by lending at a much higher usance to persons of real solidity, whose pecuniary matters were embarrassed by the troubles of the time. By and by they extended their business; they discounted bills; they advanced money to government on the security of the taxes; and the receipts for the cash lodged in their houses passed current from hand to hand under the name of Goldsmiths' Notes. The goldsmiths, in fact, became bankers, till the two businesses were separated by Mr Francis Child. On the site of his banking-house stood formerly the shop of Mr William Wheeler, goldsmith and banker, with whom Child was an apprentice. The apprentice married his master's daughter, as was frequently the case in the good old times; and at the death of his father-in-law, sinking the shop, he established a great banking business, which remains in full activity and undiminished respectability to this day.

The exact date of the commencement of this concern is not known, but its existing books go back to the year 1620. Hoares' began in 1680, and Snows' in 1685; and about the latter date a Bank of Credit was tried, but does not appear to have met with success. The want

* History of the Bank of England, its Times and Traditions. By John Francis. 2 vols. Third edition. London: Willoughby. 1848.

of a great bank was so sensibly felt, that the idea became an ignis-fatuus of enthusiasts, and was made a stalkinghorse by projectors. Nothing was talked of, nothing thought of, but money. Lottery upon lottery turned the heads of the people. Engulfed treasures were to be rescued from the bottom of the deep; pearl-fisheries were to pay impossible per centages; joint-stock companies juggled and cheated as an example to later times. At this moment an individual rose conspicuously amid the crowd, whose teeming brain originated the Bank of England* and the fatal Darien expedition.

William Paterson was a native of Dumfriesshire, and was educated for the church; but although he visited | the West Indian islands on pretext of converting the heathen, it is supposed that he attached himself to the roving expeditions of the bucaneers, either as a spectator or comrade in their adventures. On his return to Europe, he brought into the affairs of everyday life a brain heated by such an education of circumstances, and an imagination fired by the stories related by the wild men of the sea of mines of gold and gems, and rivers with Pactolean sands. His Darien scheme we can only allude to. Rejected in England, and in various continental countries, it met with so warm a reception among the poor and cautious Scotch, that they rushed to subscribe to the Company, as Sir John Dalrymple tells us, with an eagerness not exceeded by that with which they signed the Solemn League and Covenant. Every effort was made to crush the Company at the outset, more especially by the English ministry and parliament, who, among other reasons for their hostility, feared that if it succeeded, the Scotch would in time become so powerful as to separate themselves entirely from England. Nevertheless, in 1698, twelve hundred colonists, under the conduct of Paterson himself, sailed from Leith, and arrived in due time at the golden isthmus, where, instead of unheard-of treasures, they met only with disease, famine, the sword, and, above all, the determined hostility of the English government, which issued proclamations in the West Indies forbidding supplies to be furnished to the Scotch at Darien. The result was, that they were obliged to abandon the colony; and of the whole body, only thirty, including the projector, ever saw again the pier of Leith. Such was the originator of the Bank of England, which, in spite of the most violent opposition from goldsmiths, bankers, usurers, and politicians, was incorporated by royal charter four years earlier than the Darien expedition, on the 27th July 1694.

There were at this period only four considerable banks in Europe-those of Amsterdam, Venice, Hamburg, and Genoa : the first three being merely establishments for the convenience of the merchants, and the last connected likewise, for its own advantage, with the state by means of a perpetual fund of interest on public loans. It was on the model of this Genoese bank that the Bank of England was planned, which began business in Mercers' Hall, and then removed to Grocers' Hall, where the twenty-four directors and fifty-four secretaries and clerks were seen at work together in a single great room. The salaries at this time amounted to L.4350; and it appears that interest of three or four per cent. was allowed upon deposits. Paterson was in the direction only one year, when, after his ideas had been made use of, the friendless Scot was intrigued

* Paterson is also generally represented as the originator of the Bank of Scotland, which was established by an act of the Scottish parliament in 1695. We shall by and by show some reasons for doubting his alleged concern in the origin of this bank.

fell under suspicion, and was so closely hunted by the agents of the Bank, whom he mistook for bailiffs, that he fled back into London. The directors, learning from his wife that the object of their pursuit was only a great painter, somewhat out at elbows in the world, presented him with a couple of their own engravings, passing for L.20 each.

The history of the suspension of cash payments in 1797, and of the subsequent act restricting the Bank from paying in cash, is too long for this abstract. We must content ourselves with saying that the establishment was embarrassed by the constant Give! give!' of Mr Pitt, who had all the world at war, and that the people, confounded by the signs of the times, ran in crowds to their bankers, in town and country, to demand money for notes. In order that the public might be put to as little inconvenience as possible, L.2 and L.1 notes were issued; and that the Bank was not really injured in its resources, was proved by its subscribing in the following year L.200,000 to the voluntary contribution for carrying on the war. In the first four years after the introduction of small notes, eighty-five executions for forgery took place. About the same time, the Bank was robbed by one of their cashiers, of the name of Astlett, to the amount of L.320,000. This man was condemned to death, but permitted to live in prison. Another cashier, of a very different character, and whose name is better known, Abraham Newland, died in 1807, worth personal property to the amount of L.200,000, besides L.1000 a-year in landed estates. This large fortune is accounted for by the profits on public loans, a portion of which was always reserved for the cashiers' office.

amounted to a conviction—that the Bank itself, hitherto regarded as almost sacred, was sharing the danger of the time, added to the general anxiety. Up to this period, with the single exception of 1797, the term Bank' had been synonymous with safety. When, therefore, it was believed that, amid the general wrack and ruin, even the Bank of England was in danger, the great hall of the establishment witnessed an eager proffer of notes in exchange for gold, which, however, was met as promptly as it was made. No attempt was offered to withhold, as in 1797; no attempt to delay, as in 1745. It was probably partly owing to the unhesitating readiness with which the gold was paid as fast as it could be demanded, that the confidence of the public was so quickly restored. Had the holders of the notes felt that there was anything like hesitation, the alarm would have spread indefinitely, and the Bank must have suffered in proportion.' 'Gold! gold!' was the cry on all sides; and it was answered by another coinage as well as that of the Mint. Counterfeit sovereigns appeared with the new national issue, and were eagerly taken, because they looked like money. A reissue of small notes was still more essential; for in fact a great portion of the distress was owing to so many persons finding themselves destitute of a currency wherewith to carry on the business of life. The small notes, according to Mr Harman, 'saved the country;' and within a week after their appearance, the storm died away, and men were at leisure to clear the wreck. The projects brought during the mania into the market had nearly 6,000,000 shares, and required a capital of upwards of L.372,000,000. In the two years 1824 and 1825, L.25,000,000 was actually advanced by the English nation on foreign loans.

The establishment by the Bank of branch banks in the provinces appears to have excited much trading jealousy; but as these establishments at the present moment number only thirteen, there could not have been much cause for the feeling. During the reform fever in 1832, the Bank sustained the last run upon its gold made from political causes. In the same year the English nation made a vast onward stride in civilisation, by entirely remodelling the useless and brutal system of capital punishments. Forgery of bank notes was one of the crimes exempted, although the forgery of wills and powers of attorney was continued on the black list for a few years longer.

In 1816, the Bank had attained to such a pitch of prosperity, that a bonus was declared in the shape of an addition of twenty-five per cent. to the capital stock of each proprietor. An act of parliament was necessary for this, and the directors were authorised at the same time to increase their capital to L. 14,533,000, at which amount it still remains. In 1821, Mr Peel's famous currency bill came into operation, and cash payments were resumed. A fraud of a bank clerk named Turner was discovered this year, and the delinquent escaped still more easily than the last. Owing to some failure in the proof, he was found not guilty, and betook himself to the banks of the Lake of Como with his spoil, amounting to L.10,000. In 1824, Fauntleroy was not so fortunate. Although a banker and a gentleman, he We have not thought it necessary to encumber this met the death of a felon on the gallows. This was article with an account of the various renewals of the another bubble epoch. The country laboured under a Bank charter. We may say, however, that it grew plethora of capital, and cured itself by bleeding till into a usage for the privileges of the incorporation to vitality was almost extinct. 'All the gambling pro- be sold to them by government from time to time. pensities of human nature,' says the Annual Register, But we must not omit to say that the last renewal, were constantly solicited into action; and crowds in 1844, fixed the extent of the paper circulation at of individuals of every description, the credulous and L.14,000,000; namely, L.11,000,000 on the security of the suspicious, the crafty and the bold, the raw and the the debt due for the public, and L.3,000,000 on Excheinexperienced, the intelligent and the ignorant; princes, quer bills and other securities; and arranged that every nobles, politicians, placemen, patriots, lawyers, physi- note issued beyond that sum should have its represencians, divines, philosophers, poets, intermingled with tative in an equal amount of bullion. This year was women of all ranks and degrees-spinsters, wives, and distinguished in another way by the frauds of Fletcher widows, hastened to venture some portion of their and Barber, which excited much speculation at the property in schemes of which scarcely anything was time, chiefly on account of the doubt which appeared to known but the name.' The result was as usual: and, exist of the guilt of the latter. The forgery of Burgess as usual, the wits sported with the national calamity, in the following year is likewise too recent to have been one of them advertising a company for draining the forgotten by our readers. This year is the epoch of the Red Sea, in order to get out the valuables dropped great railway mania, of which we are now witnessing therein by the Children of Israel during their passage, the close, and counting the cost. The history,' says a and the Egyptians in their pursuit. When the reaction London banker, of what we are in the habit of calling the Bank added to the consternation by contracting the "state of trade" is an instructive lesson. We find its discounts. Banker after banker came toppling down, it subject to various conditions which are periodically both in town and country, to the number of seventy- returning; it revolves apparently in an established three in a month; trade was at a stand-still; and the cycle. First we find it in a state of quiescence—next public panic made everything still worse than it was. improvement-growing confidence-prosperity-exciteThe gloom which pervaded the metropolis was uni- ment-overtrading-convulsion-pressure-stagnation versal. A vague feeling of uncertainty as to the issue-distress-ending again in quiescence.' ripened into an indefinite dread of consequences, almost We must now allow Mr Francis to describe the office as harassing as the worst reality. A general bankruptcy of the Bank in his own words. The interior arrangeseemed impending. The impression-for it scarcely ments of the Bank of England are not the least remark

came,

able part of its economy. The citizen who passes it on his way to his counting-house, the merchant who considers it as an edifice where he gets his bills discounted or lodges his bullion for security, and the banker who regards it in his daily visits only as a place to issue the various notices that interest him, look on it with an indifferent eye. Even to the stranger its external appearance is almost lost in contemplating the nobler structure which looks down upon it. But to visit its various offices, to enter into the mode in which its affairs are conducted, and to witness the almost unerring regularity of its transactions, cannot fail to excite admiration. The machinery of Manchester on a small scale may here be witnessed. The steam-engine performs its work with an intelligence almost human, as by it the notes are printed, and the numbers registered, to guard against fraud. When the spectator passes from building to building, and marks each place devoted to its separate uses, yet all of them links in one chain, he cannot fail to be affected with the grandeur of that body which can command so extensive a service.

Having now skimmed these interesting volumes, with Macpherson's 'Annals of Commerce' open before us, so far as they go, we have only to beg our readers to understand that Mr Francis is a devout admirer of the Bank of England throughout its whole history-any incidental remarks of our own which may be supposed to have another tendency notwithstanding.

THE OLD FLEMISH BURYING-GROUND. AMONGST a widely-spreading relationship we reckoned the Flemish Quaker family of the Vanderheims, although circumstances had occasioned the ties of kindred to be overlooked or forgotten on both sides for many years. But at length circumstances led to a renewal of friendly correspondence and association, and to my becoming an inmate of their dwelling for a considerable time. This dwelling, with its gray and sombre aspect, had once formed part of an old convent, whose name, usages, and traditions had not altogether passed away, although they were refused a place in the memory of the Society of Friends. These good people found its spacious hall, vaulted chambers, great gates shutting out the world, and cloisters running round a square courtyard of shaven turf, with a sun-dial in the centre, surrounded by flower-beds, exceedingly agreeable to their peculiar habits and tenor of being; yet all peaceable and kindly as were their dispositions, they evinced undisguised repugnance when any allusion was casually made by the curious stranger touching on the bygone tales attached to their beloved home. The Vanderheims were among the commercial chiefs presiding over the quaint grassgrown Flemish town where they resided; whose green ramparts were unceasingly paraded by a few sentinels, ever keeping watch in mimic state. The town itself was as dull and slumberous-looking as the genius of its inhabitants, nestling amid waste dreary-looking sandhills, surrounding it on three sides, and stretching to the sea, while the fourth side presented an inland expanse of dotted here and there by a solitary windmill or a clump flat uninteresting country, interspersed with canals, and

The most interesting place connected with the machinery of the Bank is the weighing-office, which was established a few years ago. In consequence of a late proclamation concerning the gold circulation, it became very desirable to obtain the most minute accuracy, as coins of doubtful weight were plentifully offered. Many complaints were made that sovereigns which had been issued from one office were refused at another; and though these assertions were not perhaps always founded on truth, yet it is indisputable that the evil occasionally occurred. Every effort was made by the directors to remedy this, some millions of sovereigns being weighed separately, and the light coins divided from those which were full weight. Fortunately the governor for the time being, before whom the complaints principally came, had devoted his thoughts to scientific pursuits, and he at once turned his attention to discover the causes which operated to prevent the attainment of a just weight. In this he was successful; and the result of his inquiry was a machine remarkable for an almost elegant simplicity. About eighty or one hundred light and heavy sovereigns are placed indis- and a free buoyant heart, this sojourn among my Quaker Coming from a gay French resort with elastic spirits criminately in a round tube; as they descend on the relatives apparently offered but slight prospect of enjoymachinery beneath, those which are light receive a slight touch, and this moves them into their proper tion could have reconciled me to it, more especially on ment; and nought save a sense of necessity and obligareceptacle, while those which are the legitimate weight being introduced for the first time to three demure female pass into their appointed place. The light coins are cousins, my seniors by so many years, that with girlish then defaced by the sovereign-cutting machine, observ-impertinence I set them down as starched, cross-grained able alike for its accuracy and rapidity. By this 200 may be defaced in one minute, and by the weighing machinery 35,000 may be weighed in one day.'

of stunted trees.

old maids. But this crotchet passed away like other follies of youth and inexperience; and I now look back Flemish dwelling, with the youngest of these 'crosson the many monotonous hours passed in that quiet grained' cousins for my sole companion, as on the most tranquil and smooth, if not the happiest portion of my life.

The following is an account of the personnel:- The supreme management of the Bank is vested in the whole Court of Directors, which meets weekly, when a statement is read of the position of the Bank in its securities, bullion, and liabilities. The directors have equal The strict unvarying regularity of the household arpower, and should a majority disapprove of the arrange-rangements, unbroken by hopes, fears, amusement, or ment, they might reconstruct it. Eight of them go out, excitement of any description, was only varied by the and eight come in, annually, elected by the Court of perambulations which I was permitted to take in comProprietors; and the system on which the affairs of the pany with Rahel Vanderheim, for whom walking exercise Bank are conducted is of course liable to change, as was prescribed by her medical attendant. She it was new directors may exert their individual influence on who readily undertook to make me by degrees an excelit. A list of candidates is transmitted to the Court of lent pedestrian, and who daily brought bouquets of roses Proprietors, and the eight so recommended uniformly to my room; roses so exquisite in colour, rich in perfume, come in. Quakers and Hebrews are not eligible, and peerless in form, that I became curious to learn from although many are so well versed in monetary matters. whence they were procured. The gardens in and around When an individual is proposed as a new director, the town were far too scanty to afford a profuse supply; inquiry is always instituted concerning his private and if the honest Flemings coveted the possession of the character.' blushing beauties as much as I did, there must be plenty of roseries somewhere. Rahel reminded me that the canals afforded easy means for the transport of all necessaries-flowers and vegetables being thus mostly brought from a distance; and the flower-market offering a pleasing picture in the early morning-time, ere the nosegays were sold and dispersed, she promised to take me to see it. My grave cousin, however, reproved at the same time the enthusiasm with which I spoke of this.

The Bank, as we have seen, commenced business with fifty-four assistants, whose salaries amounted to L.4350. The total number employed at present, according to Mr Francis, is upwards of 900, and their salaries exceed L.210,000. Of this sum the governor receives only L.500, and the directors L.300 each; but these gentlemen doubtless are remunerated in another way.