THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
sectional labours of a host of able and enthusiastic
inquirers, and we are at liberty to select the particular
field or line which appears to suit our particular views.
But if we cast our eyes around, we soon discover that
the range of special pieces extends over the whole area,
and that while we possess within the limits of modern
Europe, or even of Britain, many remarkable examples,
we should form a very imperfect idea of this aspect of
the matter if we forbore to comprise the ancient Greek
and Roman series and certain salient productions of
the East; and it is apt to be a source of agreeable
surprise to many who have not devoted much atten-
tion to this topic, when they for the first time enjoy
an opportunity of examining a veritable coin of the
good Caliph Haroun El Rescind, or of that illustrious
ruler of Hindostan, so greatly nearer to us, the
Emperor Akbar. It is natural enough, of course,
that both should have struck money, as they in fact
did ; but every one does not immediately realise that
the Caliph of Bagdad was an actual reality (he was
contemporary with Charlemagne), or that the author
of the famous " Institutes " was a great practical sovereign
in the same way as Queen Elizabeth was. He
was almost exactly parallel with her. Then, again,
what collection of this class would be judged complete
in the absence of Cleopatra
—
the Cleopatra—the lady of
whom, when we read of her achievements and triumphs
and regard her features, we are nearly betrayed into
suggesting; that it must have been in her manner that
on o
much of the charm lav.
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