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 was at Bruges. 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 of the royal exchange given it by Queen Elizabeth. In the times of the Romans there were public places for the meeting of merchants in most of the trading cities in 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.