REMARKABLE GOLD COIN OF OFFA

the Icgcnd, whîch is reversed in its position wilh Iho words OFFA REX, shows Ihat il is a copy of a Miissiilman rimar, by a workman unacquainted with the Arabie langiiage, and indocd ignorant of the fact of thèse characters belonging lo any language whatever. Examples of a similar description of coin were put in circulation by the French bishops of Agde and Montpellier, in the 13th century. In the présent case, we cannot see an intentional adoption of a foreign language, as on the coins of Russia, Spain, Sicily, Georgia, and even Germany. On the money of Vassili Dmitrivitch, of Dmitri Ivanovitch, on that of the Norman princes William and Roger, and the Mozarabic dinar of Alfonsus, we find Arabie legends appropriated to the very princes by whose commands they were struck. One silver pièce of Henry IV, emperor of Germany, bears on the reverse the name of the Khalif Moktader Billah ben Motadhed ; but this is merely the resuit of an association between those princes.

This coin, inscribed with the name of Olfa, bears the date 457 (a.d. 774), and Offa began to reign in 755 ; it is therefore probable that it was copied from some coin brought into Europe by trade, or by some of the Arabs who, in the year 469 (785), fled from the religions persécutions of the Khalif Hadi.

We learn from the English Chroniclc, that on associating bis son with him in the kingdom, OfTa promiscd tho the Pope's legate a gifl of 396 gold marieuses every year ; and as we bave no gold coins of this period remaining, it may be conjectured that this dinar, found at Rome, and bearing the name of the Mercian monarch, is a spécimen of the very gold maneaSy as well as another kind of imitated gold coin recently discovered in England and Scotland, of which some varieties bave becn purchased in Paris. I allude to the rude solidiis of Louis le Débonnaire, with the legend MVNVS DIVINVM, in very barbarous characters. I need not refer to the imitations of the type of ChfiU'les le Chauve on the coins of Ethelred, nor to the commercial and political relations which existed between the twô countries at this period.

lOS RKMARKABLE GOLD CO[N OF OFFA.

Ah to Uiti siugulai' facl of an Arabie Icgcnd sclccted to bo senl to n Pope, \ve are aulhorised by the ignorance of thc limes lo suppose tiiat kin^ OITa mislook For merc ornamenLs. characlers wbicli Ihe Pope, on tbe olherhand, wonld cnnsider Saxon letlers.