REMARKABLE GOLD COIN OF OFFA

thelegcnd, whîch îs reversed in ils position with'tho words OFFA REX, shows Ihat it is a copy of a Miissulman dinar, by a workman unacquaintcd with the Arabie languagc, and indocd ignorant of the fact of thèse characters belonging to 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 mtentional 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 tho 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 i57 (a.d. 774), and Oiïa 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 169 (785), fled from the religions persécutions of the Khalif Hadi.

We learn from the English Chroniclo, that on associating bis son with him in the kingdom, Oflapromised tho the Pope^s legate a gift of 396 gold mancuses every year ; and as we hâve 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 mancuSy as well as another kind of imitated gold coin recently discovered in England and Scotland, of which some varieties bave been purchased in Paris. I allude to the rude solidus of Louis le Débonnaire, with the legend MVNVS DIVINVM, in verj- barbarous characters. I need not refer to the imitations of the type of Charles le Chauve on tho coins of Etheirod, nor to the commercial and political relations whioh oxisted botween the two countries at this period.