In p. 385. MR. ARCHIBALD FRASER, Woodford, not choosing to exonerate Mr. Fennell by either of my suggestions, prefers, as a staunch, but I think rather an inconsiderate friend and champion, to _vindicate_ the paragraph as it stands, by candidly admitting that if the word _beach_ had been used, it would certainly have referred to the sea; but that the word _shore_ applies to rivers as well as seas. And he goes back as far as Spenser to find an instance of its use, as applied to the banks of the river Nile. I will not agree that this use is nearly obsolete, but give him the full value of his quotation from Spenser. But what does he say to the _habitat_ of the _Mytilus modiolus_, which the Mousehunt goes {478} to the _shore_ to feed upon. I quote from _Rees' Cyclopædia_, voce "MYTILUS:" "MODIOLUS. Shell smooth and blackish, obtuse at the smaller end, and rounded at the other; one side near the beaks is angular. Two varieties are noticed by Lister. It _inhabits_ the European, American, and Indian _seas_, adhering to fuci and zoophytes; is six or seven inches long, and about half as broad: the fish is red or orange, and eatable." J. S.S. _Value of Money in the Seventeenth Century_ (Vol. ix. p. 375.).--Say, in his _Political Economy_ (Prinsep's translation, i. 413.), has furnished a comparative statement, the result of which is, that the _setier_ of wheat, whose relative value to other commodities has varied little from 1520 down to the present time, has undergone great fluctuations, being worth-- A. D. 1520 512 gr. of pure silver. A. D. 1536 1063 ditto. A. D. 1602 2060 ditto. A. D. 1789 2012 ditto. Whence it may be inferred that 1000l. in 1640, 1660, and 1680 did not vary much from its value at the present time, _such value being measured in silver_. But as the value of all commodities resolves itself ultimately into the cost of labour, the rate of wages at these dates, in the particular country or part of a country, must be taken as the only safe criterion.