in matters of commerce, denotes a public edifice in certain cities, for the meeting of merchants to negotiate bills, and confer on other matters relating to money and trade. In this sense, burse amounts to the same with what we otherwise call an exchange.

The first place of this kind to which the name Burse was given, Guichardin affirms was at Bruges; and it took its denomination from an hotel adjoining to it, built by a lord of the family de la Bourse, whose arms, which are three purses, are still found on the crowning over the portal of the house. Catel's account is somewhat different, viz. that the merchants of Bruges bought a house or apartment to meet in, at which was the sign of the purse. From this city the name was afterwards transferred to the like places in others, as in Antwerp, Amsterdam, Bergen in Norway, and London. This last, anciently known by the name of the common burse of merchants, had the denomination since given it by queen Elizabeth, of the royal exchange. The most considerable burse is that of Amsterdam, which is a large building, 250 feet long and 130 broad, round which runs a peristyle 20 feet wide. The columns of the peristyle, which are 46, are numbered, for the convenience of finding people. It will hold 4500 persons.

In the times of the Romans there were public places for the meeting of merchants in most of the trading cities of the empire; that built at Rome, in the 259th year after its foundation, under the consulate of Appius Claudius and Publius Servilius, was denominated the college of merchants; some remains of it are still to be seen, and are known by the modern Romans under the name loggia. The Hans towns, after the example of the Romans, gave the name of colleges to their burse.