250 [Proc. B.N.F.C, 



number ot undoubted portraits, and from the variety of great 

 events recorded on the coins belonging to it, be considered of 

 the highest importance and interest. In addition to the vivid 

 illustrations of history and general civilization, which they convey, 

 the coins of Greece and Rome form, in themselves, a complete 

 history of art from its earliest development to the highest excellence 

 it ever attained in the greatest age of Grecian splendour, some 

 Greek coins of that epoch presenting works unsurpassed by 

 sculptures on a larger scale. 



We may trace on the Roman series the gradual decline of art, 

 with the decay of the Empire, until, on the complete prostration 

 of Roman power in the west, art became nearly extinct, to revive, 

 after a dormant period, in a totally new feeling, in the quaint 

 but energetic character known as Gothic, the development of 

 which may be traced in the coinage of modern Europe, from the 

 fifth to the fifteenth centuries. The modern series, consisting of 

 Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and English coins, is, perhaps, 

 more perfect and complete than that of any other state, and 

 exhibits every stage of development, from the rude Saxon penny 

 of Ethelbert, to the great coinage of gold nobles in the reign of 

 Edward III., as well as the links of all subsequent progress. The 

 eventful reign of Charles I. might be exhibited very graphically in 

 a small cabinet of his coins. The rude siege pieces, struck without 

 coining apparatus, in different parts of the kingdom, whither the 

 fluctuating fortunes drove that unfortunate prince, serve as 

 monuments of almost each disaster or temporary triumph. Amongst 

 these, not the least remarkable are the great twenty-shilling pieces 

 of silver, struck at Oxford, from the plate given up by the heads of 

 the colleges, to be melted down and coined for the royal cause, in 

 which process perished some of the noblest specimens of the 

 exquisite skill of our early silversmiths, the loss of which will never 

 cease to be regretted by all true lovers of art. The essayist, after 

 showing the interest coins offer to private study, and their 



