are the scarcest of all.

At a public sale of the coins of the late Mr. Dimsdale, the banker,
the Oxford crown with the city under the horse, was knocked down at
sixty-nine pounds. At the same time the rial of Mary brought sixty-three
pounds, and the rial of Elizabeth twenty-one pounds ten shillings.

A friend of the author is of opinion, that the coins of Henry VII.,
with the head _in profile_, are the first English money bearing a
likeness of the sovereign.

[The work is illustrated with, several lithographic _fac similia_
of coins; and the vignette is from a very beautiful gold coin of Hiero
II. of Syracuse, in the possession of Mr. Till, of Great Russell-street,
Covent-garden. This morsel of antiquity, not larger than one's little
finger nail, must be upwards of _two thousand_ years old!]

[10] The groat of Edward I. sold for five and a half guineas, at a
public sale in London, in March, 1827. It is quite evident
that the effigies of the English monarchs on their coins are not
_likenesses_, until the time of Henry VIII. whatever the
Ingenious may say to the contrary. Some have supposed that the
rude figures on the Saxon coins use likenesses, but the idea
is ridiculous. Folkes, in his "Table of English Silver Coins,"
remarks that the Kings of England are represented _bearded_ on
their great seals, but always _smooth-faced_ on their coins.


* * * * *