THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
of others, with whom it might become an object of
ambition to emulate the titled aristocracy and qualify
themselves to occupy a footing based on confrbrie ; and
the cause of knowledge and the interests of science
naturally profited by a generous competition, in which
at last all classes found themselves joining. In the
course of the eighteenth century, and still more, owing
to political developments, of that of which we are per-
sonal witnesses, scarcely a vocation exists which has
not, or has not formerly had, its representatives on the
now long roll of coin-collectors. Every profession and
industry have contributed their quota : the Church,
the Law, the Army, the Navy, Medicine, the Stock
Exchange, Commerce ; and the taste, though more
usually personal, is occasionally hereditary.
The older race of collectors, even in the century just
behind us, leaned on the whole more toward the medal
than the coin, and at any rate displayed an almost
exclusive partiality for the Greek and Roman series,
just as the bibliophile of the same period cultivated the
Greek and Roman writers at the expense of the early
English and continental literature. A survey of the
catalogues of the average coin-collectors of a few gene-
rations since will shew how prevalent was this bias, and
in how slight esteem the monetary productions and
antiquities of England and Scotland were formerly held
in comparison with those belonging to classical times.
The Earl of Pembroke seems to have almost taken
the lead in admitting the ancient money of his own
country to a share of attention and space, and his