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

36 The Coins of Europe
the reigning prince or his family, was one which the Crown
had every reason to encourage. 1 It was a practice which
tended to familiarise and endear the features of the sovereigns
to thousands who had never beheld, and might die without
beholding, the individual and the ; engraver often succeeded
in idealising, so as to convey a favourable notion of the
personality of the king or queen, if he did not go so far as
the artists of Greece, when they produced deified resemblances
of great rulers, and led an ignorant and unlettered nation
to look upon them as allied to the immortals.
We ought to feel very well satisfied that so many, not
only of the technical terms, but of what may be called the
vernacular or sobriquets, bestowed on early continental coins,
have been recoverable ;
and we must not be surprised that
some, the product of a temporary feeling or a humorous
fancy, are unintelligible even to the country of their birth.
The legends on Teutonic coins, both German and
Netherlandish, were ordinarily in Latin, but occasionally in
the vernacular. There is an urban silver crown or gulden
of Nimmhegen, 1565, with Dutch inscriptions; the modern
Belgian Government has recently adopted the practice of
using the national language for this purpose.
It is a curious, and not uninteresting, study to pass
under review a selection from the various European series
appertaining to a period of despotic and oppressive rule, and
to take note of the pious, sympathetic, and paternal sentiments
which are engraved on the money. We hear of little
but clemency and justice, noble and unselfish devotion to the
general welfare, contempt of lucre, reliance on the Almighty
or on some patron-saint. On the contrary, the extremely
valuable assortment of siege pieces tells a very different tale :
of cruel, unbearable tyranny, of sordid greed, of insolent
arrogance, of paltry treachery, of popular despair. Such
mottoes as we encounter on the coins of the Netherlands
under Spanish misrule are eloquent enough Aid us in the
:
name of the Lord ! Save us, O Lord ; we perisli ! From
1
See Cat. of Denominations under "Carolus," "Frangois," "Leopold,"
" Napoleon," etc.