MORAL ESSAYS.

EPISTLE V.

ΤΟ

MR. ADDISON.

MORAL ESSAYS.

EPISTLE V.

ΤΟ

MR. ADDISON,

OCCASIONED BY HIS DIALOGUES ON MEDALS.

SEE the wild Waste of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears,
With nodding arches, broken temples spread!
tombs now vanish'd like their dead!
Imperial wonders rais'd on Nations spoil'd,
Where mix'd with Slaves the groaning Martyr toil'd:

The

very

5

Epistle V.] This was originally written in the year 1715, when Mr. Addison intended to publish his book of Medals; it was some time before he was Secretary of State; but not published till Mr. Tickell's Edition of his works; at which time the verses on Mr. Craggs, which conclude the poem, were added, viz. in 1720.

As the third Epistle treated of the extremes of Avarice and Profusion; and the fourth took up one particular branch of the latter, namely, the vanity of expense in people of wealth and quality, and was therefore a corollary to the third; so this treats of one circumstance of that Vanity, as it appears in the common collectors of old coins; and is, therefore, a corollary to the fourth.

Ver. 6. Where mix'd with Slaves the groaning Martyr toil'd: ] The inattentive reader might wonder how this circumstance came to find a place here. But let him compare it with ver. 13, 14. and he will see the reason,

Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.

For the Slaves mentioned in the 6th line were of the same nation with
the Barbarians in the 13th; and the Christians in the 13th, the Suc-
cessors of the Martyrs in the 6th; Providence ordaining that these
should ruin what those were so injuriously employed in rearing; for
the
poet never loseth sight of his great principle.

Huge Theatres, that now unpeopled Woods,
Now drain'd a distant country of her Floods:
Fanes, which admiring Gods with pride survey,
Statues of Men, scarce less alive than they!
Some felt the silent stroke of mould'ring age,
Some hostile fury, some religious rage.
Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.

Perhaps, by its own ruins sav'd from flame,
Some bury'd marble half preserves a name;

That Name the Learn'd with fierce disputes pursue, And give to Titus old Vespasian's due.

10

15

20

Ambition sigh'd: she found it vain to trust The faithless Column and the crumbling Bust: Huge moles, whose shadow stretch'd from shore to shore, Their ruins perish'd, and their place no more! Convinc'd, she now contracts her vast design, And all her Triumphs shrink into a Coin. A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps, Beneath her palm here sad Judæa weeps. Now scantier limits the proud arch confine,

25

And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine;
A small Euphrates thro' the piece is roll'd,

And little Eagles wave their wings in gold.

30

The Medal, faithful to its charge of fame,

Thro' climes and ages bears each form and name:
In one short view subjected to our eye
Gods, Emp❜rors, Heroes, Sages, Beauties, lie.
With sharpen'd sight pale Antiquaries pore,
Th' inscription value, but the rust adore.
This the blue varnish, that the green endears,
The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years!
To gain Pescennius one employs his schemes,
One grasps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams.
Poor Vadius long with learned spleen devour'd,

$5

40

Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scour'd:

And Curio, restless by the Fair-one's side,

Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride.

Theirs is the Vanity, the Learning thine:
Touch'd by thy hand, again Rome's glories shine;
Her Gods, and godlike Heroes rise to view,
And all her faded garlands bloom a-new.
Nor blush, these studies thy regard engage;
These pleas'd the fathers of poetic rage:
The verse and sculpture bore an equal part,
And Art reflected images to Art.

45

50

Oh when shall Britain, concious of her claim,
Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame ?
In living medals see her wars enroll'd,

55

And vanquish'd realms supply recording gold?
Here, rising bold, the Patriot's honest face;
There Warriors frowning in historic brass :
Then future ages with delight shall see
How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks agree;
Or in fair series laurell'd Bards be shown,
A Virgil there, and here an Addison.

Then shall thy CRAGGS (and let me call him mine)
On the cast ore, another Pollio, shine;

60

Ver. 49. Nor blush, these studies thy regard engage;] A senseless affectation which some writers of eminence have betrayed; who when fortune, or their talents, have raised them to a condition to do without those arts, for which only they gained our esteem, have pretended to think letters below their Character. This false shame M. Voltaire has very well, and with proper indignation, exposed in his account of Mr. Congreve: "He had one defect, which was his entertaining too mean "an idea of his first Profession (that of a Writer), though it was to "this he owed his Fame and Fortune. He spoke of his Works as of "Trifles that were beneath him; and hinted to me in our first con"versation, that I should visit him upon no other foot than that of a "Gentleman, who had led a life of plainness and simplicity. I answered, "that, had he been so unfortunate as to be a mere Gentleman, I "should never have come to see him; and I was very much disgusted "at so unseasonable a piece of vanity." Letters concerning the English Nation, xix.