In connection with this city of Nicopolis, we may mention the fact that one of the most important transactions in Colonel Leake s diplomatic career—namely, a conference with the celebrated Albanian Vezír, Ali Pasha, which led to the ratification of a peace with the Porte in 1808—took place on the sea-beach, near the ruins of the ancient aqueduct of the city, on a stormy night in the winter of 1807. The crafty Vezír, in order to throw dust into the eyes of the French consul, who was watching the proceedings with much jealousy, had previously got up a sort of scene in his presence,—receiving an English messenger, whom he had himself instructed to ask for permission to purchase provisions, with affected sternness,—haughtily refusing to grant his request,—and declaring that the two nations were still at war;—although he had already made with Colonel Leake a private arrangement to give him the meeting that same evening on the beach. As the day declined, the weather became so threatening that the captain of Colonel Leake’s ship was afraid to anchor off the coast; and so dark was the night, that had not Ali himself caused muskets to be discharged, the appointed place of rendezvous on the beach could not have been discovered. At length the boat neared the land, and the Vezír was found seated under a little cliff attended by one or two of his suite, and a few guards. Dr Johnson might seem to have anticipated this scene, in his tragedy of Irene, where he describes an interview between the Greek Demetrius and the Vezír Cali in these words:—
“He led me to the shore where Cali sate,
Pensive, and listening to the beating surge.
There, in soft hints and in ambiguous phrase,
With all the diffidence of long experience,
That oft had practised fraud, and oft detected,
The veteran courtier half revealed his project.”[[8]]
During the two hours the conference between Colonel Leake and the Vezír lasted, the surf rose considerably; and it was not without a good drenching from the rain and the sea, and some difficulty also in finding the ship, which they could hardly have done without the aid of the lightning, that the boat returned on board. The ship then stood away from the coast.[[9]]
But to return to our subject. Every one who feels a thirst for knowledge, must value coins as the medium of acquiring knowledge: every one who has an eye for grace and beauty, must value them as presenting unrivalled specimens of grace and beauty: every one who is susceptible of the charms of fancy, must love to study the hidden meaning of those imaginative devices, which sometimes, as Addison says, contain as much poetry as a canto of Spenser. Let not the study be condemned as dry and crabbed, for Petrarch was a numismatist. Let it not be condemned as connected with only a bygone and obsolete school of art, for Raffaelle and Rubens, Canova, Flaxman, Thorwaldsen, and Chantrey, delighted to refresh their powers by it. Condemn it not as beneath the notice of the philosopher, for Newton and Clarendon were among its votaries. Say not that men of active pursuits can find no time for it, when you hear of the collections of Wren, Mead, and Hunter.
There were numismatists among the ancient Romans. Admirers and collectors, as they were, of the other productions of Greek art, we should conclude that they were admirers and collectors of Greek coins also, even if we had no direct evidence upon the subject. Suetonius, however, expressly informs us that the Emperor Augustus was accustomed—probably at the Saturnalia—to distribute among his guests a variety of valuable and interesting gifts, and, among the rest, pieces of money—not modern money, but of ancient date—not Roman, but foreign; and some of it the coin of ancient kings. May we not recognise in this description the beautiful coins of Greece and her colonies—the coins of Syracuse and of Tarentum—of the Seleucidæ and other Asiatic kings—of the kings of Macedonia, Epirus, and Thrace? A facetious friend of ours professes to enrol Horace also in the list of numismatists; and we have often smiled at the mock solemnity with which he argues his point. He holds, for instance, that the passage,