Probably the commonest toy is the doll, which children have ever regarded as the ideal plaything. The maternal instinct is strong in the youngest girl, and dolls are often looked upon as something more than mere toys. They are talked to, played with, and treated as if they were human beings. Their realism, at first imagined, seems to have grown up with their long use until a personality surrounds each one of the dolls in the nursery. Now and then a quaint doll is treasured as having been the plaything of more than one generation, especially so the old wooden Dutch dolls, strong and lasting, which have in some instances been handed on as playthings, almost as family heirlooms. The most famous collection of dolls played with by one child, and yet dressed to cover almost every period of English history--a veritable history of costume--is that famous collection in the London Museum, consisting of dolls dressed by and for the late Queen Victoria, who, doubtless, had unique opportunities of copying correctly the costumes of the Court, and of others less high in social status, during the reigns of the English sovereigns who had preceded her. Few, if any, can hope to possess such a representative collection; there are many who can find, however, curiously dressed dolls which are very helpful in learning something of local costumes and useful instructors in research after the habits and occupations of people who may have lived in places and districts little known to the present generation. Some children's toys are much older than they appear at first sight to be, for many very similar playthings were found in the playrooms of boys and girls who lived two thousand years ago. There are the dolls and quaint little figures played with by Greek and Roman children. Among the more familiar objects were little wooden tortoises, ducks, and pigs. Some were cleverly carved out of wood, and the arms and legs of dolls moved, much the same as the Dutch dolls of later days. Those children had chariots and horses of metal much the same as children have leaden soldiers now. They trundled hoops of bronze, in some of them bells being placed in the centre, ringing as they ran along. Some of the toys of these little Roman and Greek maidens and youths were very elaborate, and must have belonged to the children of the wealthy, who, like modern parents, gave presents to them on "name" days.