Sir Charles Oman is much to be congratulated on his
excel- lent book, The Coinage of England (Clarendon Press, 2ts.). The historian who has made a close study of numismatics is rare, but every page of the book reveals Sir Charles' com- mand of his subject. He describes all the important issues from early Saxon days to 1901, and gives a series of engrav- ings. He also relates the coinage to the general history, discusses monetary policy, and incidentally throws much light on past attempts, all vain, to establish a stable bimetallic currency. His pages abound in curious facts. The figure of Britannia, he tells us, was not a portrait of " La belle Stuart" but was adapted from a Roman coin. She got her lighthouse from the cartwheel " twopence in 1797 and lost it in 1893. The Bank of England in 1804 issued a silver " dollar : five shillings " ; it lasted only a dozen years but its memory is preserved in the popular locution " half a dollar "or half a crown. The regular dating of our coinage began in 1662 ; Edward VI and Elizabeth had dated some but not all of their coins. The so-called guinea, coined from Guinea gold in 1668, was officially a pound piece, but com- manded a premium of a shilling or even more, until it was discontinued after Waterloo. Another first-rate book is English Coins by Dr. G. C. Brooke of the British Museum (Methuen, 22s. 6d.), who concentrates on the description of all the known issues and gives many fine photographs, but is content with an outline of coinage history. It is.odd that, -when no general account English coins has appeared for over thirty years, two equally authoritative works should TIOW appear simul- taneously. Both can be warmly commended.
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