In plenty ftarving, tantaliz'd in state, And complaifantly help'd to all I hate, Treated, careis'd, and tir'd, I take my leave, 165 And swear no Day was ever past fo ill. Yet hence the Poor are cloath'd, the Hungry fed; Health to himfelf, and to his Infants bread The Lab'rer bears: What his hard Heart denies, Another age fhail fee the golden Ear 170 175 Who then fhall grace, or who improve the Soil? Who plants like BATHURST, or who builds like BOYLE. VER. 169. Yet bence the Poor, etc.] The Moral of the whole, where PROVIDENCE is justified in giving Wealth to thofe who fquander it in this manner. A bad Taste employs more hands, and diffufes Expence more than a good one. This recurs to what is laid down in Book I. Ep. ii. ver. 230-7, and in the Epiftle preceding this, ver. 161, etc. VER. 176. And laughing Ceres re-affume the land.] The great beauty of this line is an inftance of the art peculiar to our poet; by which he has fo difpofed a trite claffical figure, as not only to make it do its vulgar office, of representing a very plentiful barveft, but also to affume the Image of Nature, re-establishing her felf in her rights, and mocking the vain efforts of falle magnificence, which would keep her out of them. "Tis Ufe alone that fanctifies Expence, 185 And Splendor borrows all her rays from Senfe. 180 You too proceed! make falling Arts your care, 190 VER. 179, 180. 'Tis Ufe alone that fanctifies Expence, And Splendor borrows all her rays from Senfe.] Here the poet, to make the examples of good afte the better understood, introduces them with a fummary of his Precepts in these two sublime lines: for, the consulting Use is beginning with Sense; and the making Splendor or Tafte borrow all its rays from thence, is going on with Sense, after she has led us up to Tafte. The art of this can never be sufficiently admired. But the Expreffion is equal to the Thought. This fan&tifying of expence gives us the idea of fomething confecrated and fet apart for facred ufes; and indeed, it is the idea under which it may be properly confidered: For wealth employed according to the intention of Providence, is its true confecration; and the real ufes of humanity were certainly first in its intention. 'Till Kings call forth th' Ideas of your mind, 195 200 VER. 195, 197, etc. 'Till Kings Bid Harbours open, etc.] The poet after having touched upon the proper objects of Magnificence and Expence, in the private works of great men, comes to thofe great and public works which become a prince. This poem was published in the year 1732, when fome of the new-built churches, by the act of Queen Anne, were ready to fall, being founded in boggy land (which is fatirically alluded to in our author's imitation of Horace, Lib. ii. Sat. 2. Shall half the new-built Churches round thee fall) others very vilely executed, through fraudulent cabals between undertakers, officers, etc. Dagenham-breach had done very great mifchiefs; many of the Highways throughout England were har ly palable; and moft of those which were repaired by Turnpikes were made jobs for private lucre, and infamously executed, even to the entrance of London itself: The propofal of building a Bridge at Westminfter had been petitioned against and rejected; but in two years after the publication of this poem, an A&t for building a Bridge paffed through both houfes. After many debates in the committee, the execution was left to the carpenter above-mentioned, who would have made it a wooden one; to which our author alludes in thefe lines, Who builds a Bridge that never drove a pile? See the notes on that place. Back to his bounds their fubject fea command, And roll obedient Rivers thro' the Land: Thefe Honours, Peace to happy Britain brings, Thefe are Imperial Works, and worthy Kings, MORAL ESSAYS. EPISTLE V. To Mr. ADDISON. Occafioned by his Dialogues on MEDALS. EE the wild Waite of all-devouring years! How Rome her own fad fepulchre appears, With nodding arches, broken temples spread! The very Tombs now vanith like their dead! EPISTLE V.] This was originally written in the year 1715, when Mr. Addison intended to publish his book of Medals; it was fome time before he was Secretary of State; but not published till Mr. Tickell's Edition of his works; at which time the verfes on Mr. Craggs, which conclude the Form, were added, viz. in 1720. As the third Epiftle treated of the extremes of Avarice and Profufion; and the fourth took up one particular branch of the latter, namely, the vanity of expence in people of wealth and quality, and was therefore a corollary to the third; fo this treats of one circumftance of that Vanity, as it appears in the common collectors of old coins and is, therefore, a Corollary to the fourth. : |