2°d §. No 32., Auc>. 9. '66.] 



NQTUS AND QUERIES. 



113 



by the great n)»jority of those whp are trying to 

 decimalise our coinage. It is true that Mercator 

 has a pound in bis system, and a mil for its thou- 

 sandth part. But his pound is not our pound. 

 Now if there be any one character of the current 

 pound aifd mil scheme which is more its distinc- 

 tive constituent than another, it is the doctrine 

 that the present sovereign is to be unaltered in 

 value. Consequently, if Mercator advocated a 

 sovereign or pound of anything but twenty parts 

 out of twenty-one of the guinea current in his 

 time, he did not propose our present pound and 

 mil scheme. Now without any arithmetic at all, 

 except an eye to see which is the greater and 

 which the less of two sums, it can be made ap- 

 ^ parent that Mercator proposed a smaller pound 

 than we now have. His ounce troy is the common 

 one ; and his proposition is to coin this ounce troy 

 into pounds at the rate of 4^. Is. 4^c?. to the ounce. 

 Now we coin the ounce into 3Z. 17s. lO^d. Con- 

 sequently, Mercator gives a lighter sovereign than 

 that we now have. But it has also more alloy in it. 

 Our standard gold has one twelfth part of alloy : 

 and his has one tenth. In both ways, then, he de- 

 preciated the pound. And not oi)Jy did he do 

 this, but he gave a reason for it, as follows : 



" There are various other points and arguments, poli- 

 tical as well as commercial, on this subject, which are 

 not, however, necessary to be discussed at present ; suf- 

 fice it to say that they are all in favour of the proposed 

 standard, &c. &c., which, indeed, must of necessity take 

 place to enable government to resume the coinage, and 

 also because our coin in its present proportions and re- 

 lative values of Mint prices with those of the Continent 

 will be constantly drained as soon as issued. Therefore 

 the absolute necessity of a new standard, &c., to restore 

 the permanency of circulating medium in the legal coin 

 of the realm." 



Mercator, then, is a writer whose etceteras are 

 very significant. They include nothing less than 

 a depreciation of the gold coin, and an alteration 

 in the relative Mint prices of gold and silver. 

 But your readers should remember that the creed 

 of the present advocates of pound-and-mil decimali- 

 sation is, There is no pound but the pound, and 

 the mil is its thousandth part. A- ^^ Mokgaij. 



UOIXY, THE mist ZiroiGBNOnS EVEB6BEBN TBEE. 



(2"* S. i. 399. 443. 502. ; ii. 56.) 



Mb. Frere and H, J. have brought forward a 

 host of authorities to b^ck their opinions ; but if 

 they are satisfied, with all due deference, I ^qi 

 not. Let me for the present confine jny case to 

 the bo2f alone. I will, if necessary, on fipother 

 occasion defend ipy position as to the ypw. I give 

 a long extracji from one of my grandfather's 

 papers in the Oent. Mag. (p. 666.), in the year 

 1787. As |kl#. Frere says he has been qbje to 

 see this volume, I am at a loss to understand how 



it is he so easily puts aside the authorities th^t 

 satisfied my grandfather, and that years since con- 

 vinced me, that the box is not an indigenous tree. 

 Dr. Lindley, also, will now, I hope, know that 

 the box has ere this " been suspected of being a 

 foreigner." I have great respect for the modern 

 authorities quoted ; Ibut in this c^se, not less is 

 njy respect for the older ones here produced by 

 my grg,ndfather. Omitting sonje remarks on the 

 box not relevant to this question, he says : 



" Asserius Menevensis observes, in his Life of Alfred, 

 that ' Berrocscire (Berkshire) taliter vocatur a Berroc 

 silva ubi Buxus abuudantissime nascitur.' This writer, 

 perhaps, remembered the Hebrew word Berosch, which is 

 the name of a tree often mentioned in the Bible, but it is 

 of very doubtful signification. It hath been by some 

 translated a box-tree; by others, an ash or larch; and 

 the Sept^agint, in their vague manner, render it, in 

 various places, by no less than six different kinds of trees 

 (JHiUerii Hierophyticon de Arbor, cap. 39.). We strongly 

 suspect this wood of box-trees in Berkshire to be ima- 

 ginary ; for we have not hitherto been able to discover this 

 tree in any place where there was the least doubt of its not 

 being planted ; probably one reason why it is not so much 

 dispersed as the yew is, because the seeds are not eaten 

 and disseminated by birds, A remarkable instance of its 

 confined state appears at the extensive plantation of this 

 tree at Box Hill, in Surrey, where not a plant is to be seen 

 in any of the adjoining fields ; and after close inspection, 

 we could scarcely find a young seedling, but the succes- 

 sion supports itself, when cut, by rising again from the 

 old stems, like a coppice. Tradition attributes this noble 

 work to an Earl of Arundel. How few possessors of such 

 useless wastes have left behind them so valuable an ex- 

 ample of their patriotic pursuits 



" bur oldest botanists agree with us in supposing this 

 tree not to be a native. * Ther groweth,' says Turner, ' in 

 the mountains in Germany great plenty of boxe wild, 

 without any setting, but in England it growet1\ not alone 

 by itself in any place that I know.^ " — Jierbal, 1586. 



" Boxe delighteth to grow upon high cold mountains, 

 as upon the hils and deserts of Switzerland, and Savoye, 

 and other like places, where it groweth plentifully. In 

 this countrie they plant both kinds in some gardens."— hytB^s 

 Herball, 1586. 



" Gerard would have done well to have specified those 

 * sundry waste and barren hils in England,' on which he 

 asserts it grew in his time, Evelyp affirnis, ' that these 

 trees rise naturally at Boxley, in Kent, in abundance ; ' and 

 succeeding writers have too hastily followed him : for in 

 a tour thro' that county, we called at this village, and, 

 on examination of the neighbouring woods, and strictest 

 enquiry of those who were best acquainted with them, 

 ^e were thoroughly conyinced that his assertion was 

 totally groundless.* To say the truth, we were not 

 greatjy disappointed, as we recollected what Lambarde 

 had said long before Evelyn's time : 'Boxky may take the 

 name of the Saxqn word Bospeleage, for the store of box- 

 trees t\xni peradpwture sam^tim greip there-'— -fergviilmlq- 

 tipn of Kent, 1576." 



My grandfather concludes with an arguRjent 

 that I think is a souud one, namely, that all 

 trees and shrubs whoge nsfpes arp derived from 

 the Latin are not with us indigenous, because 



* The names of places beginning with bo.v may full as 

 probably be derived fron) the Saxon hoc, qr bocce, a. beech 

 tree, or ^om b/K, a buckj ^s fropi tlje bpy tree. 



