W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Europe 379
the mint at Narva in Esthonia for a short series
employed
of coins with Dominvs Protector Mevs and the name and
arms of the town. Gold seems always to have been sparingly
issued in Sweden. We cannot quote any specimens
anterior to Gustavus Adolphus and of the posthumous date
1632 the later ; sovereigns struck the ducat and double
ducat, with the \ and The earliest
\. \ ducat belongs to
1692 an indication of the frugal resort to this metal at a
time when the country was meditating the output of a
copper medium at variance with all modern laws of fitness
and convenience.
Of the monetary products of the calamitous yet romantic
reign of Charles XII. (1697-1718)
the beautiful silver daler
Charles XII. daler, 1707.
of 1707 ranks as one of the most remarkable. But of course
all the pieces associated with him and his sister and successor,
Ulrica Eleonora, have their biographical or personal
as well as historical interest ;
and the probably realistic
portrait on the money of Charles himself, especially on the
daler of 1707 and the gold ducat of 1714, hardly prepares
us for the history of his strange melodramatic career. A
tragical episode in the Swedish annals during the troubles
attendant on his defeat and death was the fate of the Baron
von Gorst, who not only issued a set of copper dalers with
various mythological emblems, under the months of the year,
inscribed on them, but added one with his own effigy, which
cost him his head. The latter type
is rare.