I am glad you like your house so well, & wish you all enjoyment of it. I have had a letter from Mr. Cornelius Little the last post, acquainting me with his sending up his отно by Mr. Collins, & desiring me to send him 40 guineas for it; as allso a Denarius of Augustus, with Caius Marius on the reverse. I am not for buying a pig in a poke; neither if it was undoubtedly genuine was it worth half the money, Lord Pembroke, a little before his death, having bought one of Starbini for 15 pounds, exceedingly well preserved; & as I have a true one allready, I have no farther [desire] about it. However, I should be glad to have your thoughts about it, & a draught of it, which you may certainly have leave to take from Mr. Collins, who must be in town before this time. Mr. Little allso mentions a Denarius of Augustus, which he seems allso to value at a very high rate, & is, indeed, a scarce medal, if the same as I take it to be. He says the reverse has o: MARIVS upon it, which he takes to be the great C. Marius, but relates indeed to C. Marius, one of Augustus's Triumviri Monetales, & thought by some to be a grandson of the former. I believe the letters upon it are c: MARIVS: TRO: III: VIR., i.e., Caius Marius Trogus triumvir, which sufficiently distinguishes him.' I beg a draught of it from you, & an exact copy of the legends on both sides, & that you will seal up the inclosed & forward it as directed by the first post. I am glad you have taken the last Chichester inscription in hand, & hope you will let me have your thoughts upon it, when they are brought ad umbilicum. As I have heard a good character of cosin Will. Gale, I hope he will give you & your parish satisfaction, though he is but a very young divine. How to introduce you to Lord My service to my Harrington is at present past my skill. R. GALE. The coin of the Maria family here described appears to be that with the portrait of Julia under the attributes of Diana on the reverse (Cohen, pl. xxvii. 9). This is valued by Cohen at 120 francs. The relationship of C. Marius Trogus (if indeed Trø, stands for Trogus) to the great Marius is uncertain.-J. E. See posted under Sussex. CXCIV. ROGER GALE TO DR. STUKELEY.-H. F. ST. J. Scruton, Decr. 12th, 1740. Dear Doctor, I did not receive the box with the оTHо till last WednesI am day, when all came safe, though a week after time. intirely of your opinion, & so is Mr. Ben Crow, who has been all this week with us, that it has been fabricated out of a Nero, the remains of the head plainly belonging to that Emperor, & the first letters, IMP: M: OTHO, being very unequal & disproportionate; the reverse seems to be purposely defaced in order to disguise it the better." The other, on which Mr. Little seems to sett as great a value as upon his OTHO, is a cast counterfiet of a medal of Augustus, & had it been genuine, might have been worth 30 or 40s. I would not give 6d. for either of them, so, having an opportunity of returning them to Mr. Collins, at Stanford, by Mr. Revely, who setts out for London in the York stage next Monday, (if the roads are passable,) I have desired him to deliver them there. We have had a deeper snow upon the ground ever since last Monday than we had all last winter, & the cold little inferior. I should think myself extreamly obliged to you if you would communicate a copy of the new Chichester inscription to me at your leisure, with your remarks upon it, if you do not design to make them publick, as allso to know what annual performance you intend to entertain the world with this year, for I promise myself to see some piece with your name to it as often as you take up your residence in Gloucester Street. My service to my sister, & thanks for buying the coffee & tea, & believe me, dear Doctor, Your ever obliged friend & humble servant, R. GALE. The head upon the rev. of the silver medal is not of C: MARIVS but DIANA, as is evident by the quiver behind her shoulder. • The forgeries of the coins of Otho are numerous, and Spanheim was right as to the coins struck at Antioch in that emperor's name being the only genuine large brass coins of that emperor.-J. E. Mr. Collins tells me he informed you of a curious statue of Hercules at a shop in the Strand. If you make it a visit, I should be glad to know your thoughts of it. CXCV. R. GALE TO DR. STUKELEY.-H. F. ST. J. Dear Doctor, Scruton, Decr. 26th, 1740. I have returned the OTHо by Mr. Harry Revely to Mr. Collins, to whom he promist to deliver it as he passed through Stanford, but have not yet heard of the receit of this treasure. I fancy the severe weather may have retarded their journey. I wish it had been shown to Mr. Folks before it was sent from London; I dare say he would have concurred with us in opinion about it. I must own I could not discover how the letters had been alltered, though they appeared very ill proportioned, as IMP: OTHO not usual in those times. I have an anecdote of Baron Spanheim's, wherein he damns all the brasse OтHOS except the Antiochene, with a laurel about the head, & s: c: in a corolla on the reverse. Yet Baron Clerk wrote to me about 6 months ago that he had gott one with an allocutio on the reverse, undoubtedly genuin, or if a counterfeit as old as the time of Valentinian, being found with severall of that Emperor's coins then lately near Edenborough; but if it was the only one discovered there of the high Empire, I cannot but have a strong suspicion of its being foisted in among the others. I allways took Starbini, with whom I was severall times in company, to be a true trading Italian. I heard when in town of Mr. Folks' model of Stonehenge upon your plan, & that he intends to compare it with the original upon the spott next summer; I should be glad that he performed it, since I am sure 'twill be a full justification of your scheme, & be an answer, in a great measure, to your Bath opponent, who I see is gott into print by the advertisement in one of the newspapers, & should be glad to hear what you think of his performance, the more because it deters you from being T See note 6. Wood, the Bath architect. at any expence in giving us a new entertainment this winter. I should be glad to see Mr. Folks's & Mr. Ward's thoughts upon the last Chichester inscription; I hope they will gett some way or other into the presse. The statue of Hercules, Mr. Collins wrote to me, was at one Du Hamel's, I think a watch maker, at the sign of the Diall, in the Strand, as I remember it is on the left hand side of the way, & towards the higher end of the street. My service to all friends, & accept of my sincerest wishes of inany a happy new year to you & yours, who am, dear Doctor, Your most faithfull humble servant, R. GALE. CXCVI. Sir, ROGER GALE "TO MR. CORNELIUS LITTLE, OF GosBERTON, NEAR SPALDING, LINCOLNSHIRE, TURN OFF AT STILTON. FREE, J. F. PEEILE."-H. F. ST. J. From Scruton, near Bedale, Decr. 3rd, 1743. Yours of Novembr. 22d, being directed to me near Northallerton, lay two or three days longer at the post house than it would have done had it been directed near Bedale. As for the Augustus with Caius Marius on the reverse that I had from, & returned it to, you by Mr. Collins, it is not a medal of the great Caius Marius, but struck by his grandson, Caius Marius Trogus, one of the mint masters under Augustus. The Otho that came with it was plainly a coin of Nero, altered by some artist into an Otho, & the reverse of it purposely defaced to prevent the discovery of the fraud, as farr as he could do it, by obliterating a type that would have made it too evident. Mr. Collins was mistaken if he told you that I valued the former at two guineas, it being not worth more than half a guinea, & I have a very fair one of that sort which cost me much lesse. I wish you had sent me the reverse of the other Otho that you have since gott; I could then have made some guesse at the truth of it. It is now generally agreed by the most & best judges that all the coins in copper of that short lived Emperor, which have any other type on their reverse except s : C: in a garland, are counterfeits, as they are also if they want a laurel about the head, as I have one of undoubted antiquity, & the silver one of Marius. I have no occasion to purchase either of them myself, neither do I know any one in these parts that has a tast for such curiositys. London is the only market for such things, & if what you have are genuin, they will not long want a chapman there. I am sorry that I cannot gratifye you in your request to send you some Roman Denarii; the beauty of my stock consists chiefly in the Consular, not but that I have a good show of Imperial, which are all brought into exact order; & though I have a great many, I cannot call them duplicates of the same Emperor, because they have different reverses, which makes every one of them a different medal, & to take any out of them would falsifye & deform the catalogue that I have taken great pains to compile of them. Many of those you desire are very scarce, & such as I never yet could make myself master of, & therefore hope you will excuse, Sir, Your most humble servant, R. GALE. CXCVII. REV. G. BURTON "TO THE REV. DR. STUKELEY, RECTOR OF S. GEORGE'S, QUEEN SQUARE, HOLBOURN." -H. F. ST. J. Dear Doctor, Elden, Jan. 8th, 1748-9. I have lately met with a copper coin of Carausius, another of Allectus & a silver coin, which I take to be a Saxon Penigon one side is GERTIS: REX: AVE; on the reverse, NICHOLAUS : SARCTUS round a mitre, in Saxon characters. I find in Ethel 'This was probably one of the leaden or pewter coins of St. Nicholas cast in the 15th century, which may have been used as counters, as tokens of presence, or as monnaies des fous." One in my own collection, found at Bury St. Edmunds, reads as follows: STE: NICHOLAE : ORA: PRO: NOB., a mitred head between 8 and N. The reverse is like that of a groat of Edward IV. In the |