The _Chronicle_ is not, as by its title the reader might suppose, a large folio: on the contrary, it is a small octavo of less than 200 pages. But it is exceedingly interesting, very ably reasoned, and as circumstantial in its illustrations as the good bishop's opportunities allowed him to make it. In one thing he was more liberal than Sir William Petty, Dr. Davenant, &c., or any elder economists of the preceding century; he would have statistics treated as a classical or scholar-like study; and he shows a most laudable curiosity in all the questions arising out of his main one. His answer to _that_ is as follows: 1st, that £5 in Henry VI.'s time contained forty ounces of silver, whereas in Queen Anne's it contained only nineteen ounces and one-third; so that, in reality, the £5 of 1440, was, even as to weight of silver, rather more than £10 of 1706. 2d, as to the efficacy of £10 in Henry VI.'s reign: upon reviewing the main items of common household (and therefore of common academic) expenditure, and pursuing this review through bad years and good years, the bishop decides that it is about equal to £25 or £30 of Queen Anne's reign. Sir George Shuckburgh has since treated this casuistical problem more elaborately: but Bishop Gibson it was, who, in his _Chronicon Preciosum_, first broke the ice. After this, he adds an ingenious question upon the apparently parallel case of a freeholder swearing himself worth 40s. per annum as a qualification for an electoral vote: ought not he to hold himself perjured in voting upon an estate often so much below the original 40s. contemplated by Parliament, for the very same reason that a collegian is _not_ perjured in holding a fellowship, whilst, in fact, he may have four or five times the nominal sum privileged by the founder? The bishop says _no_; and he distinguishes the case thus: the college £5 must always mean a virtual £5--a £5 in efficacy, and not merely in name. But the freeholder's 40s. is not so restricted; and for the following reason--that this sum is constantly coming under the review of Parliament. It is clear, therefore, from the fact of not having altered it, that Parliament is satisfied with a merely nominal 40s., and sees no reason to alter it. True, it was a rule enacted by the Parliament of 1430; at which time 40s. was even in weight of silver equal to 80s. of 1706; and in virtue or power of purchasing equal to £12 at the least. The qualification of a freeholder is, therefore, much lower in Queen Anne's days than in those of Henry VI. But what of that? Parliament, it must be presumed, sees good reason why it _should_ be lower. And at all events, till the law operates amiss, there can be no reason to alter it.