64 New-difcovered Sticas explained. adult ftate, full of fmall tubercles on the-upper part of its branches, which contains its feed. N.B. On receiving this letter, looking into Ray's Synopfis, I found that this fucus, in its fungus-like ftate, is mentioned as a separate fpecies of fucus from the Sea-thongs before A mentioned, that being the 11th fucus in p 43, Ed. 3. and this the 15th fpecies, p. 43, and called Fucus fungis affinis} SIR, To Mr GEORGE FLEMING, HE Series of Differtations having by TH 6 this time reached your hand, and curiofity and natural inclination difpos'd you no B doubt to perufe them, and as I-may hope from your tried friendship, with caridor, you will be a competent judge of what I am here going to advance in comfirmation of the appropriation of Lord Pembroke's com, and Mr White's Stica, to Wigmund archbishop of York. When I had laft the pleasure of waiting upon you at Wakefield, you fhew'd me a very per- C fect Stica found at York, infcrib'd, +VIGMVND, with a reverie + ÆDERHEIM. (See Plate Fig 5) This piece, believing it might ferve me to good purpose, I was impertinent enough afterwards to request of you, and fince you were fo generous to confer it upon me, gratitude incites me to think you best intituled to the obfervations I fhall here make upon it, and these I must entreat you to accept as a token of regard, and á neceffary act of remuneration. D This piece makes the 7th of those I have difcovered as belonging to that branch of the prelatical feries which refpects the archbishops of York, and the 6th of thofe that appertain to archbp Wigmund For tho' the ftile of the prelate is not expreffed on this, as it is on Mr White's frica, which in that refpect greatly exceeds it, yet it unquestionably belongs to Abp Wigmund, who, fince fo many masters were employed to work for him, coin'd it seems a great deal, and with variety of dies. But the minter's name on the reverfe will open to us a new field: As to the inverted L, thus r, which seems to have prevailed much in the F more northern parts, fome notice was taken of that fingularity in the Series of Differtations," p. 22 t. And whereas Mr Thorefey in Camden, (as likewife in his Museum) gives a Stica to Ethelbelm, and Sir Andrew Fountaine, in his tenth table, allots him two, his true name feems rather to have been therhelm, unless we admit of a variety in the orthography of his name, as indeed is not uncommon in thefe early times. Sir Andrew, for his part, declines meddling with any explanation of the flicas, for, lays he,' Numifmata omnia in hac tabula ex are conflard funt, et fpectant ad reges five fatrapas Northum-' briæ; et cum fingula nomina fingulis nummis fint ad verticem appofita, ulteriori explicatione non o * See a fhort account of this work in our Mag for 1755, P. 575. In Jome of the copies, for that in this fotra," read the Lin this forme pus effe videtur, c.' But by the way it is not true, that all the Sticas belong to the kings or the earls and thanes, (for this I prefume must be the meaning of the word Satrapas here) for thofe two, as has been fhewn 1, which this gentlemen affigns to Anlaf, belong to archbp Wigmund, and one of thefe two coins now in queftion, will be found, if I mistake not, to belong to him too. But tho' Sir Andrew exeufes himself from writing upon the Sticas, Mr Thorefby has commented upon them in Camden, and what he has on that of Earl Ethelbelm, runs thus, 17th Ethelbelm EDILHELM [res verfe] Broder Neither of thefe perfons occur in the most accurate lift now remaining of the kings of Northumberland. Ethelhelm, I fuppofe, was fome fub-regulus, or vndere cyning (as the noblemon is rendered, John iv. 46.) in the confufion which it was reduc'd to in its declining flate.' He has much the fame in his Mufarum, p. 342. You fee, Sir, neither Sir Andrew, nor Mi Thoresby, (to whom I may add Mr Thwaites) have any objection to make to the earls or thanes coining money in the Saxon times, and yet perhaps thefe two Sticas are the only infances of it, for which reafon I look upon it to be a pofition that may be juftly called in queftion. The reverfes of thefe Sticas are taken for the obverfes, and vice verfa, both by Sir Andrew and Mr Thrvaites, (and Mr Thoresby has run into the fame error in regard to that which he published.) The first of them is to be read VIGMVND. [Reverse] EDERHEIM, which is the very reading Mr Thwaites gives us , and is fo clearly to be feen upon this Stica of ours, (and indeed this coin of ours is the very fame to a title with that in Sir Andrew) and therefore the piece apparently belongs to Archbp Wigmund, and Etherbelm, whom the gentlemen make to be a Northumbrian nobleman, or fub gulus, and imagine him to have had a power er coining money in his own right, is no other nor no better, than the name of the Archbp's int-mafter. This, Sir, being a matter of importance, I am defirous of confirming it by a paffage in Roger Hovedon, p. 490. He fays, Henry, duke of Normandy came into England about the year 1149. Et non tantum ipfe, fed omnes potentes, tam epifcopi, quam comites et barones, fuam faciebant monetam, fed ex quo dux ille venit, plurimorum monetam caffevir. It feems. that during the civil commotions in King Stephens' reign, the earls and barons coined money,, but the duke upon his arrival, put a stop to that practice, as an encroachment no doubt Gupon the prerogative royal, from whence I conclude, that whatever right to a mint the Frelates might have in the more antient times, the carls and thanes had no legal claim to any fuck.§ Series of differtations, P. 39. Note in Anglo Saxonum nummos, p 17. This is a pregnant inflance of Mr Thwaites's fagocity. And Mr Thoresby, you observe, imagined Earl Ethelhelm, whofe production be took. this ftica to have been, bad ja up bimfeif in times of confusion. But Transmigration of Souls a reasonable Doctrine: But what will you fav to the other Stica in Sir Andrews' tenth table? That Erbelbelm is there again the name of the mint mafter, I anfwer, it certainly is. But who is that broder, for Mr Thoresby and Mr Thwaites both agree in reading fo? I anfwer, they agree in A reading wrong, being led thereunto by certain other coins in the fame table t; for the letters in my opinien are, OSBERE, that is OSBERt Lyning, or OSBERL. Now Archbp Wigmund died A. D. 854, at which very time Ofbright was in poffeffion of the crown of Northumberland, which he kept till A.D 867. See Mr Drake's Eboracum, p. 74, and confequently he had time enough to take #tberbelm into his fervice after the death of his first mafter the archbishop. B To re-capitulate now in a few words what has been faid; Ift, There was no fuch perfon as Earl Ethelbelm. 2dly, The Saxon earls and thanes had no power to coin money, fo far as appears to us at prefent. 3dly, Here is a 7th coin found to belong to ArchbpWigmund. And C then 4thly, If I am right in reading what I efteem to be the obverfe of the 2d coin intituled Etbelhelm in Sir Andrews tenth plate, that coin ought to be added to thofe which he has given to king bright. Whittington, Jan. I am, Sir, Yours, &c. 31, 1756. SAMUEL PEGGE. Sir A. Fountaine, Tab. x. Eardwlf, No. 5. Ethelbert. The WORLD, No. 163. HERE was an ancient fect of D Tphilofophers, the difciples of Py thagoras, who held, that the fouls of men, and all other animals, existed in a ftate of perpetual tranfmigration; and that when by death they were dif lodged from one corporeal habitation, they were immediately reinftated in another, happier or more miferable, according to their behaviour in the former; fo that when any perfon made F his exit from the ftage of this world, he was fuppofed only to retire behind the scenes to be new dreffed, and to have had a new part affigned him, more or lefs agreeable, in proportion to the merit of his performance in the laft. This doctrine of tranfmigration, I muft own, was always a very favourite tenet of mine, and always appeared to me one of the moft rational gueffes of the human mind into a future ftate. I thall here therefore endeavour to fhew the great probability of its truth from the following confiderations. Firft, from its justice, fecondly from its utility, and laftly, from the difficulty we lie under to account for the fufferings of many innocent creatures without it. (GENT. MAG. Feb. 1750.) First then, the juftice of this fyftem exceeds that of all others, because, by it the great law of retaliation may be more strictly adhered to: for by means of this metamorphofis, men may fuffer in one life the very fame injuries which they have inflicted in another; and that too in the very fame perfons, by a change only of fituation. Thus, for inftance, the cruel tyrant who in one life has fported with the miseries of his flaves, may in the next feel all the miferies of flavery under a mafter as unmerciful as himfelf. The relentless and unjust judge may be imprisoned, condemned, and hanged in his turn. Divines may be compelled by fire and faggot to believe the creeds and articles they have compofed for the edification of others; and foldiers may be plundered and ravifhed, in the perfons of defenceless peasants, and innocent virgins. The lawyer reviving in the character of a client, may be tormented with delay, expence, uncertainty, and disappointment; and the phylician, who in one life has taken exorbitant fees, may be obliged to take phyfic in another. All thofe who, under the denomination of fportfmen, have entertained themfelves with the miferies and destruction of innocent animals, may be terrified and murthered in the fhapes of hares, partridges, and woodcocks; and ali thofe who under the more illuftrious title of heroes, have delighted in the devastation of their own fpecies, may be mallacred by each other in the forms of game cock's and pertinacious bull-dogs. As for ftatesmen, minifters, and all great men devoted to great business, they, however guilty, cannot be more properly, nor more feverely punithed, than by being obliged to reaffume their former characters, and to live the very fame lives over again. In the next place, the utility of this fyftem is equal to its juftice, and hap pily coincides with it: for by means of G this tranfmigration, all the necessary inconveniences, and all the burthenfome offices of life being impofed on those only, who by their misbehaviour in a former ftate have deserved them, become at once just punishments to them, and at the fame time benefits to H fociety; and fo all thofe, who have injured the public in one life by their vices, are obliged in another to make reparation by their fufferings. Thus the tyrant, who by his power has op preffed his country in the fituation of a prince, I 66 Its Confiftency demonftrated by Examples. Prince, in that of a flave may be com- For my own part, I verily believe are now actually roafting for a city Lastly, the probability of this fyftem appears from the difficulty of accounting for the futfering of many innocent creatures without it; for if we look tound us, we cannot but obferve a great F and wretched variety of this kind; numberiefs animals fubjected, by their own natures, to many miferies, and by our cruelties to many more; mcapa ble of crimes, and conlequently inca pable of deferving them called into being, as far as we can difcover, only to be miferable for the fervice or diver- G fion of others lefs meritorious than themfelves, without any poffibility of preventing, deferving, or receiving any ecompence for their unhappy lot, if their whole existence is comprehended in the narrow and wretched circle of their prefent life. But the theory here H inculcated, Temoves all thefe difficulties, and reconciles thefe feemingly un jult difpenfations with the ftrictest juftice: it informs us, that thefe their fufterings may be by no means undeferved, but the juft punishments of their for mer misbehaviour in a ftate, where, by means of their very vices, they may have escaped them. It teaches us that the pursued and perfecuted_fox was once probably fome crafty and rapacious minifter, who had purchased by his ill-acquired wealth, that fafety, which he cannot now procure by his flight that the bull, baited with all the cruelties that human ingenuity or human malevolence can invent, was once fome relentlefs tyrant, who had inflicted all the tortures which he now endures that the poor bird, blinded, imprifoned, and at laft ftarved in a cage, may have been fome unforgiving creditor; and the widowed turtle, pining away life for the lofs of her mate, fome fafhionable wife, rejoicing at the death of her husband, which her own ill-ufage had occafioned. Never can the delicious repaft of roafted lobsters excite my appetite, whilft the ideas of the tortures in which those innocent creatures have expired, prefent themfelves to my imagination. But when I confider, that they muft have once probably been Spaniards at Mexico, or Dutchmen at Amboyna, I fall to, both with a good ftomach and a good confcience, and please myself with the thoughts, that I am thus of fering up a facrifice acceptable to the manes of many millions of maffacred Indians. Never can I repofe myself with fatisfaction in a poft-chaife, while I look upon the ftarved, foundered, ulcerated, and excoriated animals, who draw it, as mere horfes, condemned to fuch exquifite and unmerited torments for my convenience; but when I refect, that they once muft undoubtedly have exifted in the characters of turnkey of Newgate, or fathers of the holy inquifition, I gallop on with as much eate as expedition, and am perfectly fatisfied, that in pursuing my journey I am but the executioner of the strictest justice. I very well know, that thefe fentiments will be treated as ludicrous by many of my readers, and looked upon only as the productions of an exuberant imagination; but I know like wife, that this is owing to ill-grounded pride, and falfe notions of the dignity of the human nature for they are in themselves juft and ferious, and carry with them the ftrongest probability of their truth: fo ftrong is it, that I cannot but hope it will have fome good effect on the conduct of thofe polite : people |