of the medals; and the wide range of subjects, with the great num. her and variety of authors quoted, highly honorable as they are to the learned diligence of the author, are also quite effectual in removing whatever of dryness might have been found in the topic itself. The playful turns of fancy, and the strokes of character and humor which give distinctness and animation to the speakers, have as much of the peculiar zest of his genius as his best Spectators. Besides the two dialogues which strictly answer to the general title, there is a third called 'A parallel between ancient and modern medals,' which is laudable for the moderation and absence of national prepossession with which it discusses the merits and defects of those struck by order of Louis XIV., to record the glories of his reign. It is frankly avowed that, in most points of excellence, these come nearer to the ancients than any other modern ones, and it is added, that to the French we are also indebted for the best lights that have been given to the whole science in general."

'For what reason the author of these elegant and highly finished pieces should have left them to make their first appearance in the posthumous edition of his works, it is not easy to divine. Possibly he might apprehend that he had already introduced in his Travels as much of classical matter as the English public, immersed in party contests, would find leisure or inclination to attend to; possibly he might not fully have satisfied the excessive delicacy of his own taste in the execution; probably he might soon become distrustful of the soundness of some of his conjectural interpretations of enigmatical inscriptions and half-effaced or ll-formed figures."-Miss AIKIN-Life of Addison, pp. 89-91.

Le Clerc, whose acquaintance Addison formed during his tour, and who apparently had seen the first draft of the Dialogues, says, in his observations upon the Travels, &c., which were "done from the French by Mr. Theobald, and printed in 1715"-"Mr. Addison has not a little applied himself to the study of medals, the mystical meanings of whose reverses he has explained in a work well worthy to be made public, and which I hope he will soon oblige the world with."

"These Dialogues of Addison are written with that sweetness and purity of style which constitute him one of our first prose writers. The chief imperfection of his Treatise on Medals is, that the persons introduced as speakers, in direct contradiction to the practice of the ancients, are fictitious, not real; for Cynthio, Philander, Palæmon, Eugenio and Theocles, cannot equally excite and engage the attention of the reader with Socrates and Alcibiades, Atticus and Brutus, Cowley and Spratt, Maynard and Somers."-Addisoniana, v. 1, p. 80.-G.

VERSES

OCCASIONED BY MR. ADDISON'S TREATISE ON MEDALS

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 vanish'd like their dead!
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.

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 sink 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 and Rhine:

A small Euphrates thro' the piece is roll'd;
And little eagles wave their wings in gold.

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,
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 garments bloom anew.
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.

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

With aspect open shall erect his head,

And round the orb in lasting notes be read.
"Statesman, yet friend to truth! in soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear:

Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend;
Ennobled by himself, by all approv'd,

And prais'd, unenvy'd, by the muse he lov'd."

A. Pora