which he had used on his accession to the throne by an expulsion of the philosophers, on which followed a decline of literature. His court, from which Agricola was afterwards cautioned to retire, notwithstanding the semblance of imperial favour, and the mild Nerva was banished to Sarentum, became no scene for Frontinus, who withdrew to retirement.

Here, from a perusal of the Greek as well as the Latin authors, it appears that in 837 (A. D. 84) the year in which Domitian returned from Germany, he completed his military addenda with a Greek name, Strategematicon (Erparnynμarikov); for he mentions Domitian five times, and gives him the title of Germanicus, which he had received from the army, and was confirmed by the Senate; while no mention is made of the subsequent Dacian war, when Domitian appeared in person. It is supposed by commentators that he dedicated this work originally to Trajan, then in " private station."

а

The scene of his retirement exhibits Frontinus in a new and amiable character his taste chose for it the then ancient Anxur, whose ruins still mark its site, near the modern Terracina; it was a villa in the vicinity of Baiæ, to which, like Seneca, he had no objection to be near, though he would not involve himself in its exquisite luxuries.

That taste has been confirmed by many Roman poets; but the poet of human nature, Martial, is more to the present purpose,*—the unhappy Martial, who knew how to trace every character of the mind from the elegant ambition of Pliny to the grovelling sensuality of Sabellus or Elephantis; "whose lays (as he says) even Britain sang, though his purse felt it not; "+ who, besides beautifully describing the scene, has shown that he was entertained here, and had cause to affectionately remember the conqueror of South Wales. I

"Anxuris æquorei placidos FRONTINE," &c. "O my Frontinus, when with sweet delight On the cool shore, near Baia's gentle seats, I lay retir'd in Anzur's soft retreats, With thee what bliss to court the learned muse!

Proud Rome shall every joy like these refuse;

*Mart. 1. x. ep. 51. † Ep. 11. Ep. 58, &c.

No day of charming indolence to boast, In barren toil my lavished life is lost;

my FRONTINUS, though from thee I part, By every fane I swear thou hast my heart!"

This is no place for supporting the abased character of Martial; besides, the accomplished Pliny has done that already in such a manner as would console a man of talent borne down by distress and calumny, if he could hope to obtain even such small patronage in life, such kind eulogy after death.

Though in retirement, another talent of Frontinus was not without its due exercise; it was that which acquired a knowledge of jurisprudence (a further proof of his liberal education), to the utmost acceptation of the Romans; and it was exercised in a time of great danger-the capricious tyranny of Domitian. The curious case is in Pliny, Epist. l. v. c. 1, ix. 13. He also appears to have employed himself when in the country, on his treatise de Re Agraria, a subject from its innoxiousness comporting with the temper of the times. It was dedicated to his military contemporary Celsus as his first fruits on that subject; and confessed, what probably his leisure taught him, that his studies in war had superseded those of composition.

Domitian, however, at length fell by the hands of his own creatures, A. U. C. 849 (A.D. 96), and the mild Nerva, who was elected in Gaul, was shortly after recognized at Rome. The reign of justice succeeded that of terror; and Frontinus was appointed Curator of the Aqueducts, a charge which, as he observes in his work on the subject, had always been confided to the first persons, as the aqueducts were the clearest token of the grandeur of the empire. In the following year the Emperor made him his colleague in the Consulate, which Martial seems to have celebrated in honour of his patron by a jovial invitation to Lupus to partake of a full flagon of wine without dregs:

*

"De Nomentana vinum sine face lagena, Quæ, bis FRONTINO Consule, plena fuit." +

Nerva having restored the plunder. of Domitian, and given a large sum of money to be laid out in lands for the support of decayed families, and his

* De Aqued. art. 67. + Lib. 10, Ep. 48.

friend Corellius, with the celebrated Claudius Pollio, being employed in purchasing and dividing them, probably gave birth to the treatise de Limitibus. Of this work two MSS. bear the names Julii Frontini Siculi, and are among the authorities of the learned for the birth-place of Frontinus.

The short reign of Nerva, which was, however, long enough to obtain for him the title of Friend of Mankind (so much good may be performed in a short time), concluded at the commencement of 851 (A.D. 98), and "the admirable Trajan" entered upon the functions of government in a manner for which history has sufficiently honoured him. He had not reigned much above a year, when Italy became alarmed by the inroads of the Dacians, a warlike people of Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia, under Decembalis, a king whom no treaties could bind to peace, no misfortunes subdue. Trajan promptly put himself at the head of a numerous and well-appointed army, and called Frontinus to a chief command, according to Vegetius, from his being considered the greatest tactician of the age, and greatly esteemed by the Emperor for his writings on the art of war. The campaign was severe, but rapid and successful. There is reason to believe that Frontinus was attached to the personal staff of the Emperor, and that the history of their services was intermingled. Having penetrated to the capital, and driven the enemy to their mountains, after the manner of the Silurian campaign, Trajan granted peace with humanity, and both in a few months returned to Rome.

On the commencement of 853 (A.D. 100), Trajan appointed Frontinus as his own colleague, Consul in ordinary; which, completing his third consulate, raised him, according to Pliny, to the highest rank of a subject. But it appears also that he had been named to this office in the field, which confers spendour on his services there.

Elevated in rank, and occupied in employments as he was, Frontinus appears to have returned impatiently to his studies; for in the same year appeared his treatise De Aquæductibus Urbis Rome, which he had begun on his appointment as Curator by Nerva. In this work he is considered by the learned as evincing great skill in the application of mathemati

cal principles to water; and the modern Rafael Fabretti, in his treatise De Aquis et Aquæductibus Veteris Romæ, claims as its chief merit the power of usefully illustrating the work of Frontinus. In this work it is pleasant to find him taking this honourable opportunity of evincing gratitude to his friends, with discriminative justice; for, after duly pronouncing the praise of Nerva, from whom he received the appointment, he takes every proper occasion to speak of Trajan, but of Domitian nothing; he does not even indicate his Consulships; he consigns him, no longer dangerous, to a deserved oblivion.

In whatever office he was employed, Frontinus seems, like Lord Bacon, to have considered himself a debtor to his profession; no object of his employment did he leave unexplored; nor was there any which he examined without useful illustration. Indeed, it was the same with regard to the objects that surrounded him in his very retirement, as is evinced in his Treatise of Rural Affairs. His mind could not be inactive, and its activity was always directed to usefulness.

His corporeal as well as mental activity was, however, again called upon in the year of Rome 854 (A.D. 101), -it was to attend the Emperor against the Dacians, who, making an ill use of the clemency of Trajan, had recovered themselves sufficiently not only to appear in arms, but to commit outrages in the Roman territory. They were now entirely subjugated; and Dacia, where Liberty was said to have made her last stand, became a Roman province.

Frontinus then returned to enjoy the result of his labours in that dignified retirement which was suitable to his age and character. He had been actively employed in the military service of his country, at an age much beyond that at which the laws permitted even senators to retire; and exercised the highest offices both civil and military with the greatest distinction and success.

Still, however, the love of letters, and of being useful to his country, prevailed, and he was found occupied in a treatise on the colonies of Italy (de Coloniis Italia), which he did not finish; for in the 859th year of the Roman æra, A.D. 106, and the 74th of his age, he died, as he had lived,

their money at the Mint, which was a most convenient place for a national bank; but the seizure of 200,000l. by Charles I. in 1638, put an end to this practice; soon afterwards the merchants began to lodge their money with the Goldsmiths, and this gave rise to the trade of banking.

A politician may amuse himself with speculating on the causes which thwarted the attempts to establish a national bank during the suspension of royal authority; the notion that banks were republican institutions, dangerous to a monarchy, contributed afterwards to retard their introduction in this country, and it may be owing to similar apprehensions that attempts to establish them, independent of the Government, have been discountenanced in England up to the present time. It is unlikely that jealousy prevented Cromwell from conceding his patronage when it was solicited; but it is doubtful whether the nature of his government was calculated to remove the distrust of public depositaries occasioned by the seizure at the Mint in 1638. The projectors of this period fixed on land as the most eligible permanent security, as most capable of deriving benefit as well as conferring support, and as the best means of inducing our titled and untitled aristocracy to promote their schemes. Their favourite model, the bank of St. George at Genoa, for more than two centuries the most prosperous that ever existed, was a Land Bank, inasmuch as its original capital was invested in mortgages of real property; therefore a short sketch of its history may be properly introduced when we are reviewing the abortive attempts of Dr. Chamberlayne to create a Land Bank before the Bank of England was firmly established.

The bank of Amsterdam, established at the beginning of that century, was intended solely to save the trouble of counting specie, and prevent disputes about it, not to economise the use of it by enabling it to effect a greater number of payments; on the contrary, if a second transfer was made of any payments on the same day, a charge was made of a half per cent. These transfers, on the books of this Bank, were considered as payments in bullion, because the stock, called Bank Money, was originally created on deposits of bullion, and the money of the country was received only at its value

as bullion; but as neither bullion, nor the specie deposited as bullion, could be drawn out by the holders of bank money, or more properly, bank credit, unless they were also holders of the recepissen, or pledge tickets given to the original depositors; and as these recepissen became forfeited, if the charge upon them was not regularly paid up, in course of time the Bank had the entire control over a considerable part of the bullion and specie; and being exempt from any liability to produce it, was able to substitute for it pledges of another nature, therefore it received in pawn the Brazil diamonds sent for sale by the Portuguese government, and it made advances to the East India Company to be redeemed by the sale of its spices, the payments for which were made at the Bank. Being exempt from making payment in specie, the situation of the Bank of Amsterdam was similar to that of the Bank of England during the restriction; and wanting no income, except to defray the expenses of management, it was able to make advances upon merchandise for short periods at 1 per cent. interest; but its power of doing so was limited by the necessity of sustaining its credit, which it did in the manner described by Adam Smith. By this steadiness of price the usefulness of Bank Money was maintained, in such a manner that up to the period of the French invasion bills drawn from Spain upon Hamburgh were made payable at the bank of Amsterdam. Bills payable at this bank constituted the principal circulating medium for the international commerce of Europe; and to supply their place after the capture of Amsterdam in 1795, required ten or twenty times the amount of the treasure which had been deposited there; this, in the most flourishing times, did not exceed 24 million sterling, according to the information I received from Mr. Louis Hovy, who had been one of the Commissioners of the Bank in 1786.

The transfer and circulation of foreign bills of exchange appears to have become legal in England by the custom of merchants, without the intervention of Parliament; the distinctions made between the validity of foreign bills and inland bills, between inland bills and promissory notes, between promissory notes for large sums and those for smaller ones, are mere

quibbles. If it is dangerous to permit the use of any one denomination, it may be shewn on nearly the same grounds that all are equally dangerous; they all encourage speculation, give occasion to fraud and imposture, and they all increase the quantity of circulating medium; but those who profit most by this right of transferring bills in its first gradations, are desirous of limiting the right for the purpose of restraining the competition of those who obtain credit by means of the lower denomination. Opulent tradesmen in the present day are as hostile to the small note currency as they are tenacious of the right of using bills of exchange. We have seen in the instance quoted by Sir Walter Raleigh, the use that was made of promissory notes in the Hans Towns more than two centuries ago; to this he objected as usurious, but a high rate of discompt was necessary as a compensation for the risk with which the transaction was attended; that a stranger, a foreign adventurer, should have been able to get a bill discompted in Elbing at eighteen months date upon any terms, is a matter of astonishment.

In the year 1651 the present method of making payments by the indorsement of bills was recommended by Master W. Potter; and it is remarkable that the chief object of his proposal of having a central bank, or place of payment, has been accomplished by the banker's changinghouse. He also proposed branch banks, for the convenience of making payments between London and other places by transfer. In his preface, referring to a former publication, he said, "When I first undertook to publish a treatise called the Key of Wealth,' I had little hopes of fruit during my life, other than the comfort of sowing that seed which might spring up to the advantage of some succeeding generation; but seeing that what I had proposed is generally resented [approved] by those who have perused the same, it gives me some ground to expect better things." To give currency to bills, he proposed a clause in the Act to be passed for the purpose, "that such bills shall be payable before any debts whatsoever, as if a man had confessed a judgment of his whole estate for the payment thereof;" it was intended that land should form the permanent security of

of any plan for a bank. The hopelessness of an attempt of this kind during the reign of a dissipated and rapacious monarch, was rendered fully manifest by the violation of his engagements with the bankers in 1670. On the commencement of a more auspicious æra with the Revolution of 1688, the scheme of Dr. Chamberlayn and the "Discourses" of Sir Josiah Child were again brought before the public. The editions of the latter printed at this time, have been erroneously represented as the earliest. We have had before us Mr. Locke's view of the subject printed in the year 1690, and have seen that he considered the quantity of money kept lying idle as a principal cause of the scarcity of it among manufacturers and agriculturists, which he particularly described. He also perceived that it was partly occasioned by our foreign expenditure, which affected the course of exchange, and offered an inducement to melt down coin for exportation; and he subsequently recommended, as a preventative, a renewal of the seigniorage, which he had strenuously opposed. Sir Josiah Child, who, writing under royal auspices, did not choose to make any mention of his republican predecessors, had perceived that if Potter's plan with regard to notes and bills were adopted, money might be made more abundant by the same means which Mr. Locke represented as one of the causes of its lying idle and becoming scarce, the multiplication of transactions occasioned by commodities passing through divers hands. The philosopher acknowledged the advantage of the method recommended by the merchant, if it could be rendered safe, easy, and convenient. The establishment of the Bank of England did not immediately and entirely prove that his objections were groundless, but rather seemed, for a