Phlllips.| £v-i [Feb.7, 



events. They are in no way remarkable for the art displayed upon their 

 coinage, and maintain their chief interest from their historical associations, 

 while their claims to he regarded as exhibiting a graceful execution are 

 very slighl when we compare them with the chef d'ceuvres of the Grecian 

 artists. The arts never flourished in Rome as they did in Greece, they 

 were never indigenous to the soil that hore a hand of rugged heroes. 



The coinage of the Roman nation, from its earliest inception down to the 

 capture of Constantinople by the Turks, presents to us a lengthy and unin- 

 terrupted chain for two thousand years. Upon the series are preserved to 

 us the portraits of the monarchs, their w 7 ives and families, relations and 

 generals ; it forms a connecting link between the misty, shadowy realm of 

 the forever past, and the living, breathing, moving present of to-day. 



Upon the coinage are found their wars and conquests and expeditions, 

 imperial voyages to distant portions of the empire, valuable historical facts 

 and epochs. We shall take occasion later to more fully advert to these in- 

 teresting records. 



Coins of the Sassanidoe, the rulers of the second Persian empire, from 

 about 226 A. D. to 651 A. D. are curious and interesting. They are thin 

 flat silver coins, bearing on the obverse a bust of the monarch wearing a 

 peculiar head dress, on the reverse a fire altar stands between two figures 

 dressed in the old Persian garb (representing respectively the genii of good 

 and evil), and an inscription in Arian characters is at, the side. These 

 coins are of uncouth and barbarous design and workmanship, and represent 

 a period of decadence in art before the Mohammedan conquest had prohib- 

 ited the representation of the human figure as idolatrous. 



The art of coinage, as carried into the East by Alexander the Great, re- 

 mained in Bactria and India for many centuries, where money was 

 long coined with inscriptions in the Greek languages, the coins of the 

 Arsacidre in Armenia, and of the Sassanidae in Persia, bringing the mint- 

 ages of Central Asia down to a comparatively recent period. 



We now come to the coinage of Great Britain, as being a good connect- 

 ing link between the Roman and the modern eras of coinage. A very 

 heavy and uncouth gold British coin of remote antiquity, perhaps of a 

 period even before the days of Caesar, marks the beginning. Then in 

 regular order come the rude coinages of the various early monarchs (too 

 .familiar to require description here), pennies, groats, &c, &c, broad gold 

 pieces of James L, Charles I., and the Commonwealth of England ; a very 

 fine crown of Queen Elizabeth ; gold "touch pieces," given by Kings Charles 

 the Second and James the Second, to those unfortunate beings whom, in 

 conformity with the superstitions of the times, they "touched" to cure the 

 King's evil; a fine Gothic pattern crown of Queen Victoria, but never 

 adopted for the national coinage. 



Coins of Philip and Mary, bearing both their heads. These were current 

 until a comparatively recent date, and were referred to in Hudibras : 



" * * * * * cooing and billing, 

 Like Philip and Mary upon a shilling." 



