to her" at once, and for forty or fifty years treated her with filial devotion and affection. What a new, delightful life it was for her! It was almost bewildering in its variety and enjoyment. Mr. Grainger was the most indulgent of husbands. Her ready tact soon showed her how to adapt herself to all his tastes, though at first the change from the free, roving style of manners at Shinavea was a little perplexing. There was a good deal of comedy in this situation, and many little touches in Miss Austen's manner as when with much formality and state, a light refection was carried up to her rooms, with a single small glass of wine, Mr. Grainger's ideal of the most that a lady of refinement could require! This was a grotesque contrast with the free butt of claret, and the liberal "jugs" which were in vogue at Shinavea, and made her laugh heartily. A more serious difficulty was her finding sympathy and appreciation for Mr. Grainger's elegant tastes. He had travelled a great deal, could speak foreign tongues fluently, had lived in Rome, where he had been a patron of Thorwaldsen, one of whose works, a beautiful Hebe, had been a commission, and was now standing in a niche in the corridor. There were other statues and many good paintings, some purchased at Malmaison, which, however admirable, were rather unintelligible to the bride from Shinavea. Indeed, had the Hebe found her way thither, she was more than likely to have served as an excellent target for pistol practice. He also could read Italian and French, and had a good library of works in these tongues. But her tact and good purpose were such that in time she acquired not only taste, but a most elegant taste, which almost extended to everything, and when she admired or bought, she had almost infallible taste in choosing what was best, most suitable, and most becoming, and the best value, too. In matters of dress she was really incomparable. There was nothing she insisted on so much as the magic power of dress. A well-dressed man or woman had everything, she maintained, in his or her favour. "Shabby clothes were a self-refutation, and so many irresistible arguments against the wearer's worth. Mr. Grainger was passionately fond of music, and a cultivated amateur. He was good-naturedly tolerant to the musical efforts of Shinavea, and listened kindly to "Where are you wandering, my pretty maid?" But she felt at once that this was not his style exactly. The operaand those were the days of Persiani, Tamburini - he idolised, and it was his delight to make her share all his transports. In Paris, "Don Giovanni" had just been brought out, and was all the rage; and she used to tell us the rather wearying probation she had to go through listening to this new and somewhat unintelligible language. At every fine passage she found his eyes fixed upon her in a sort of rapture, while he expected a responsive enthusiasm, which she was amiable enough to simulate. His delight, too, was to fill his house with a gathering of wholly or semi-professional persons, who took possession in the free and easy fashion of their order, and played and sang into the small hours. Here was more comedy, for in his enthusiasm he assumed in her a corresponding ardour, and would have particular pieces especially performed for her. She had not the heart or courage to withdraw herself from this rather severe discipline. She indeed came to dread these musical treats, which a word from her would have disposed of. It was pleasant always to put together the elements of this really fine and delicately wrought character from his wife's descriptions. As I have said, he was double her age, yet it was likely that no one of her own age would have shown the same unwearied thoughtfulness and unselfishness. Never during his life did a harsh word or rebuke ever escape him; but on any matter that met his disapproval there was in his manner something that was beyond severity of language. A little quick in impulse and high-spirited, the lady of Shinavea, as she often impressed on us, when ready with some wayward speech, felt ashamed to utter it in that calm, irresistible presence. He would not, in fact, see or recognise the possibility of such a thing as a dispute or quarrel. How fine was this principle! A man of such a character was certain to advance in the world. He made hosts of friends, highly influential ones-political and others—and made his way in Parliament, though not distinguished as a speaker. He was ambitious, however, and before his death was assured of office, and had the promise that an old baronetcy in his family should be revived. He knew many celebrated persons. Our mother used often to relate how when walking in the Park he said to her, "Note this man who is approaching; look your best, for he is a very remarkable man." This was a dark, richly dressed, not to say dandified, young man, who was introduced as "Mr. Bulwer." All the world was then talking of "Pelham." She often described the impression this elegant personage made upon her, and used to repeat the no less elegant compliment which he paid her-after the fashion of the day. By this time there were three children -a boy and two girls. So "Aunt Blake" might fairly shake her head and condole with "poor Charley," whose nose, as she affected to consider, "was put out of joint for ever." This made no difference, as may be imagined, and the whole family was truly harmonious. By this time the head of Shinavea House had passed away, and the inhabitants had changed generally. The son and successor had now "come into his property," small as it was, while the widow and her daughters had gone to foreign parts for economic living, and had settled themselves at Dieppe, where there was then a huge English colony of refugees; there they had a pleasant, jovial time enough, and with this change in the family circumstances we may bring this sketch of our mother to an end. Of this last one the two-pound note. does not hear much, and probably it never attained an extensive circulation. The "promises to pay " of the Bank of England, from its first foundation in 1694, were doubtless for good round sums. We read that two years after its foundation, its rivals, the goldsmiths, "keeping running cashes," who were the original bankers of the community, were so jealous of the success of the new institution as to promote a run upon it. On this occasion the directors were fain to pay their notes only in part, endorsing the amount paid, and to request their over-anxious creditors to "call again" another day. It was only in 1759 that notes under twenty pounds in value were first circulated, and so little was this innovation relished by the ruling powers, who seem to have feared that the increased circulation of bank-notes would create a scarcity in gold, that in 1775 the Bank was prohibited from issuing notes under twenty pounds, although two years afterwards the limit was reduced to five pounds. The year 1797, in which the one-pound note made its first appearance, was, perhaps, the most critical that England has ever passed through. The French Republic had gone forth to conquer like a young giant. Carnot, the great war minister, whose descendant is now the President of the French Republic, had organised victory in every quarter, and General Buonaparte ONE-POUND NOTES, GUINEAS, ETC. was beginning his wonderful career of triumph. IF the scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is carried out, we shall soon have one-pound notes in circulation, and the familiar, useful sovereign-never too familiar-may be extensively replaced by the crisp and rustling note. To begin with, we shall be rather puzzled to give the new-comer a name. The "fiver" and the "tenner" we are acquainted with, anyhow by repute, but to call the fresh arrival a "oner" might lead to confusion, as that word has already a popular significance of his own. What was the custom of our forefathers in this respect, it may be asked. For as most people know, if only from the familiar snatch: I'd rather have a guinea than a one-pound note, the new note, if it comes, will be only a revival. The one-pound note began its existence in the throes of the great war with France in 1797, accompanied by its twin brother Fleets and armies were in preparation for the invasion of England; Ireland was ripe for rebellion; there was mutiny in the fleet; and to crown all, a monetary panic financial houses throughout the country. On threatened ruin to all the banks and great Saturday, the twentieth of February, when the Bank of England closed for the day, there was only a million and a quarter left in the Bank cellars, a sum which would barely suffice for the demands of another day of panic. The Government was as vitally concerned as the Bank. A Cabinet Council was hastily summoned, and met on the Sunday. On Monday the crowd of people who awaited the opening of the Bank doors were met with the announcement of an Order in Council, and a Royal Proclamation wet from the press ordering the suspension by the Bank of all payments in cash. The measure, desperate as it seemed, actually restored public confidence. Bank of England notes were everywhere accepted and circulated freely as legal tender, but the public convenience demanded an immediate supply of smaller notes, and another Order in Council authorised their issue. In a few days one and two-pound notes were engraved and printed, and at once issued in large quantities. For the next twenty years these onepound notes were the chief circulating medium throughout England. The country bankers were also permitted to issue their own notes of the same denomination. As for gold, people rarely saw it. The guinea, the half-guinea, and the seven-shilling piece, which were then the principal gold coins in use, were carefully hoarded by their possessors, or were only parted with at a profit. Yet the paper currency was never seriously depreciated. The pound note was always good for twenty shillings, and no one looked askance at it, unless to make sure that it was not forged. Forgery was the great trouble of the time; and the hasty manner in which the original one-pound notes had been engraved and issued facilitated the operations of the forgers. Nothing was easier than to pass a one-pound note; at any shop a trifling purchase would afford the means of changing such a note, which would often pass from hand to hand undetected, until scanned by the keen eyes of the bank official, when, of course, the last holder had to bear the loss. Up to the time of the introduction of the one-pound note, forgery of the Bank's issues had not been frequent. The Bank had existed for more than sixty years before the first forger of its notes was convicted. More cases occurred when a lower denomination of note was issued; and in 1773 the counterfeiting of the water-mark of the paper was made a capital offence, the death penalty having been previously reserved for those connected with the engraving and printing of the notes. The forgeries of old Patch in 1784 were the most serious of their time. By the ingenuity of his disguises, and his care in executing all his forgeries without accomplices, for a long time he defied deteetion. He was discovered at last by accident. Having amassed considerable wealth by his practices, he was in the habit of giving dinner-parties to his genteel neighbours; and to make a good show he would borrow a quantity of silver plate from a neighbouring pawnbroker, leaving the full value in forged bank-notes as security for its safe return. It happened, however, one day that the pawnbroker was in desperate need of money, and having lent out his plate on the usual terms, he made for the Bank of England to cash his customer's notes. At the Bank the forgery was at once detected, and the man arrested, when he disclosed the facts of the case, and the Bow Street runners made a descent upon Mr. Patch's house and captured him. The man escaped a capital sentence by hanging himself in his cell. With the introduction of small notes there arose a great and sudden increase in the crime of forgery. During the six years previous to the introduction of the "ones" there had been only one sentence of death for forging bank-notes. In the year that followed there were eighty-five capital convictions. The severity of the punishment had no effect in checking the prevalence of the crime. In 1808 a regular manufactory of forged notes was discovered in Birmingham. They were sold for export, to be used in the countries where our armies were at once fighting and paying their way, and where commissaries and contractors had familiarised the natives with English currency. They were ordered and invoiced under the name of candlesticks, numbers one, two, or five-according to the value represented by the forged notes, which were sold at the rate of six shillings in the pound-along with other hardware. The trouble with forged notes went on during the whole of the period of inconvertible issues, and in the twenty years of its duration hundreds of human victims were sacrificed for the good of the currency. At Newgate, on hanging mornings, poor wretches convicted of forgery were hung in batches, as many as a dozen at once. Such a sight was seen by George Cruikshank, the great caricaturist, one morning; there were eleven sufferers aligned upon the scaffold, two of them being women; and it was with the horror of it working in his brain that he designed and drew that inimitable model of a onepound note that gives one a cold shiver even now-the victims on the scaffold; Britannia, in the medallion, busily devouring her children; the £ of the note formed of the hangman's rope; the manacled prisoners seen in the window of Newgate; fetters and irons forming the ornamentation, and the whole subscribed, "Jack Ketch." The engraving was published by William Hone, and exhibited in his shop on Ludgate Hill, close to the scene of the hang ings; it drew crowds about the window. The Bank directors were furious, and would gladly have prosecuted the audacious artist. But public opinion was on his side, and the print worked powerfully in aid of the movement for abolishing the death penalty for forgery and the like; an object eventually attained in the year 1832. It is not likely, indeed, that the introduction of one-pound notes in the present day will give rise to any such epidemic of forgery. But the danger is a serious one, and should be guarded against by the production of a note which will defy the arts of the forger to produce a successful counterfeit. It must be remembered that the progress of science has given the counterfeiter many new processes, which require the aid of the chemist, as well as the machinist, successfully to counteract. A curious case occurred in the year 1819, which has some bearing on the history of bank notes. A man was brought before a Bow Street magistrate for passing a bad one-pound note, which had been detained at the Bank, and an inspector from the head office was in attendance to produce the note and prove it a forged one. The accused person requested to be allowed to examine the note, and on its being handed to him quickly pocketed the note, offering the prosecutor its value in silver. The magistrate declined to interfere, and the incriminated person departed in triumph. From that time forth the Bank ceased to detain a forged note when presented in the ordinary course of business, and contented itself with stamping the note with the word "Forged," repeated in four distinct impressions in the form of a cross, or arranged like the sails of a mill. This suggests a true story of later date of a farmer who had paid a note into the local bank, which in due course was returned from the Bank of England, marked with the fatal scription "Forged." A clerk from the local bank was sent up the hill to the farm, to return the note and reclaim the amount. The farmer, an illiterate man, scanned the note earnestly, not at all inclined to own himself its former possessor, and catching sight of the stamp, he exclaimed joyously "No, that was never mine. There was no windmill on the note I gave you." of England resolved to resume cash payments as soon as possible. People who had buried or hoarded their guineas now brought them to light, to secure the trifling premium which they still were worth. In 1817 the Bank undertook to pay all its one and two-pound notes on demand; but it was not till four years later that full specie payments were resumed. The onepound note had fulfilled its mission for the time, it had powerfully aided in bringing the country in safety through a fearful ordeal. But the financial authorities were strongly against small notes, and it was determined to call them in, and the process was concluded in the year 1822, when the staff of the Bank was considerably diminished. For the one-pound note gave a good deal of trouble, and necessitated a staff of clerks to register its issue and subsequent history. The notes of those days were issued again and again, and acquired a good deal of dirt in passage from hand to hand, just as the Scotch one-pound notes do now. The superior crispness and brightness of the Bank of England note is due to the fact that when once it reaches headquarters again, its career is ended. But it does not follow that it would pay to pursue the same course with one-pound notes, as the cost of production might be too serious. The Scotch banks make each note last three or four years, till they arrive at a state of blackness in which they are called colliers, when they-the notes, that isare finally put to repose. Again there came a year of panic, 1825, a panic which followed a period of inflation, and of wild speculation in foreign loans and all kinds of produce. A general run followed on the banks thoughout the country, and such was the scarcity of coin, that the most solvent concerns with difficulty kept afloat. Seventy-three private banks-no joint-stock banks then existed in--and among them seven or eight London firms of repute, had, in the course of one month, suspended payment. A general ruin seemed imminent, and the most urgent appeals for assistance reached the Bank of England from all quarters. But the Bank cellars were almost empty. It was even reported that it was unable to cash a cheque for sixty thousand pounds, and it was doubtful whether the Bank could stand another day, and the stoppage of the Bank meant national bankruptcy and universal discredit and confusion. Closely connected with the history of the great struggle between England and Napoleon is the story of the one-pound note. At the close of the war, the Bank From this terrible danger the country Henceforth the was saved by the discarded and despised them from circulation. chief circulating medium was to be: The sight of it was enough to still In country places there long remained traditions of that wonderful panic, which overspread the country as hardly any other has done, before or since. We have heard of one stalwart country banker, who, with empty till, but with the hope of a supply by the next coach, held the entrance to his bank as a fort, cajoling some and shouldering away others, and keeping everybody at bay till the coach arrived with the welcome supplies, which were borne across to the bank with loud cheers, when the run came to a sudden end. Another gentleman happened to have ordered from the Mint a box of new farthings, which was broken open on the bank floor; and the sight of the clerks shovelling up the bright coins, which everybody supposed to be gold, at once restored the public confidence. This incident has been made use of in fiction, but It is actual fact all the same. With the grand final performance of 66 saving the country," the history of the one-pound note approaches its end. But it is curious to note how its last appearance was sanctioned by the Government, with the proviso that the authorities of the Bank "shall take opportunity to procure a greater fund of treasure." This seems also to be the mission of the onepound note of the future-to establish, that is, a reserve of gold, the existence of which may calm the nerves of the body financial in time of pressure. Heavy to get and light to hold. The guinea, however, with which the one-pound note had started on its career, had disappeared long before. The coin itself was of the time of the Restoration. But by a curious coincidence it had a precursor in gold coins of the Plantagenet era, called guiennois, from the province of Guienne, in which they circulated as well as in England. But the later guineas were so called because coined in gold from the Guinea Coast. The Royal order for the first coinage of guineas, dated in 1663, sets this out clearly enough, and directs that they shall be marked "with a little elephant in some convenient place," to show their origin. And soon we hear of the fleet detained at Portsmouth by contrary winds, on some expedition against the Dutch, and the young Duke of Monmouth, who is in command, pushing the "Guinea gold " merrily about the gaming table, and wanting further supplies. The coin seems to have been originally designed to represent twenty shillings; but owing to the wretched state of the silver coinage, it came to be worth thirty shillings in 1696, and only fell from this eminence when the silver coinage was remodelled-thanks to Lord Halifax and Sir Isaac Newton-in that same year. With these solid English guineas did Dutch William carry on his wars; and it was in conducting a supply of the needful guineas to the King at the siege of Namur that the governor of the Bank, venturing into the trenches to pay his respects to his Majesty, was killed by a cannon-ball. The guinea has retained a hold in popular imagination which no other coin can rival. Although it was abolished as legal currency in 1817, under a new currency Act which installed the sovereign in its place, we often hear of it still as an expression of value. From pounds to guineas is a bid often heard in auction rooms. The physician cherishes the memory of the guinea in his fee, just as the lawyer, in his traditional six-and-eightpence, retains the half "mark," by which he formerly reckoned. Our three-year-olds, too, still race for the Guineas; and the guinea this and the other is an affair frequently to be The one-pound note did not retire alto- met with in advertisements. It is a word gether from circulation till the year 1834, that goes trippingly on the tongue, and when county banks, as well as the Bank of has no ambiguous meaning, like pound or England, were constrained to withdraw | sovereign. Yet the last is the more ancient |