EPISTLE VII.

TO

MR. ADDISON,

OCCASIONED BY HIS DIALOGUES ON MEDALS.1

SEE the wild waste of all devouring years!
How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears,"
With nodding arches, broken temples spread!
The very tombs now vanished like their dead!
Imperial wonders raised on nations spoiled,
Where mixed with slaves the groaning martyr toiled: 3
Huge theatres, that now unpeopled woods,
Now drained 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 mouldering age,
Some hostile fury, some religious rage.

1 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 pub-
lished 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.-
POPE. See Introductory Remarks.
2 St. Jerome says,
"Roma quon-
dam orbis caput, postea populi
Romani sepulchrum."-WARTON.

3 Palladio, speaking of the Baths of

5

10

Diocletian, says: "Nell' edificatione delle quali, Dioclesiano tenne moltianni 140 mila Christiani a edificarle." WARBURTON.

tacles.

4 The woods were unpeopled to provide beasts for the Roman specBy draining 'a distant country of her floods,' he must mean the water brought from a distance to flood the Colosseum for the purpose of mimic naval combats.

5 Ver. 5-10 were not included in the copy printed in Tickell's edition of Addison's works.

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

Perhaps, by its own ruins saved from flame,
Some buried marble half preserves a name;
That name the learned with fierce disputes pursue,
And give to Titus old Vespasian's due.

Ambition sighed she found it vain to trust
The faithless column and the crumbling bust:

Huge moles, whose shadow stretched from shore to shore,
Their ruins perished, and their place no more!
Convinced, 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,
And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine;
A small Euphrates through the piece is rolled,
And little eagles wave their wings in gold.

The Medal, faithful to its charge of fame,
Through climes and ages bears each form and name :
In one short view subjected to our eye
Gods, Emperors, Heroes, Sages, Beauties, lie.
With sharpened sight pale antiquaries pore,3
The inscription value, but the rust adore.
This the blue varnish, that the green endears,"
The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years!"

1 "Judæa capta," on a reverse of Vespasian.-WARD (Globe Edition).

2 i.e., the triumphal Arch, which was generally an enormous mass of building.-WARBURTON.

3 Microscopic glasses invented by Philosophers to discover the beauties in the minuter works of Nature, ridiculously applied by antiquaries to detect the cheats of counterfeit medals.-WARBURTON.

Warburton seems to have shared the dislike of Pope, Swift, and

To gain Pescennius one employs his schemes;
One grasps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams.1

Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devoured,

Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scoured:"
And Curio, restless by the fair-one's side,

Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride. '

Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine:*

Touched by thy hand, again Rome's glories shine;
Her gods and god-like heroes rise to view,
And all her faded garlands bloom anew.
Nor blush, these studies thy regard engage;
These pleased the fathers of poetic rage:
The verse and sculpture bore an equal part,
And Art reflected images to Art.'

Oh when shall Britain, conscious of her claim,
Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?
In living medals see her wars enrolled,

And vanquished 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;

dure of so many ages."-Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, ch. iii.

1 Compare Dunciad iv. 362 :

Now see an Attys, now a Cecrops clear.

2 The story is told of Cornelius Scriblerus's shield in the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, ch. iii. "The truth was the maid (extremely concerned for the reputation of her own cleanliness, and her young master's honour) had scoured it as clean as her own andirons." Vadius was Dr. Woodward.

$ Lord of an Otho, if I vouch it true,

Blest in one Niger till he knows of two. --Dunciad, iv. 369.

That is, a Pescennius Niger, as in ver. 39 above. For another mention

Or in fair series laurelled 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;"

With aspect open, shall erect his head,

And round the orb in lasting notes be read,

66

Statesman, yet friend to Truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend;
Ennobled by himself, by all approved,
And praised, unenvied, by the Muse he loved."

1 Copied evidently from Tickell to Addison on his Rosamund :

Which gained a Virgil and an Addison. -WARTON.

2 Asinius Pollio, the friend of Virgil, to whom he addresses his Fourth Eclogue.

It was not likely that men acting in so different spheres as were those of Mr. Craggs and Mr. Pope, should have their friendship disturbed by envy. We must suppose then that some circumstances in the friendship of Mr. Pope and Mr. Addison are hinted at in this place.-WARBUrton.

The suggestion in Warburton's note was doubtless inspired by Pope. The Epistle, as he tells us, was originally published in Tickell's edition of Addison's works, and it is extremely improbable that Pope should have

inserted in a panegyrical poem line reflecting on Addison's conduct, in a transaction to which Tickell himself was a party, viz., the translation of the Iliad. Without Warburton's note, no reader would suspect that the last line contained any allusion to Addison, but the commentator no doubt received the information from the poet, who took every opportunity of confirming by indirect evidence the story which he had circulated respecting the publication of the

verses on Atticus.

3 The lines on Craggs were really written after his death and the death of Addison. Tickell's edition of Addison's works appeared in 1721, not, as Pope says, in 1720. Addison died in 1719, Craggs in 1720.

Blestini

Blest in Love

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form divine