So quick requires each flying course, you'd swear Sancho's dead doctor and his wand were there. 160 Between each act the trembling salvers ring, From soup to sweet wine, and God bless the king. In plenty starving, tantalized in state, And complaisantly help'd to all I hate, Treated, caress'd, and tired, I take my leave, I curse such lavish cost and little skill, Yet hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed; Another age shall see the golden ear Imbrown the slope, and nod on the parterre, Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd, And laughing Ceres re-assume the land. 179 Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil? Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like Boyle. "Tis use alone that sanctifies expense, And splendour borrows all her rays from sense. 180 Or makes his neighbours glad if he increase: You, too, proceed! make falling arts your care, And be whate'er Vitruvius was before: 190 Bid harbours open, public ways extend, 200 EPISTLE V. TO MR. ADDISON. Occasioned by his Dialogues on Medals. 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 his 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 ook 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 coin; and is, therefore, . corollary to the fourth. 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! Imperia, wonders raised on nations spoil'd, Perhaps by its own ruins saved from flame, 20 Ambition sigh'd; she found in 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! 30 The medal faithful to its charge of fame, Through climes and ages oears each form and name: In one short view subjected to our eye, 40 Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devour'd, Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine: 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? There, warriors frowning in historic brass : Then future ages with delight shall see 50 How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks agree; 60 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; With aspect open shall erect his head, And round the orb in lasting notes be read,- 70 END OF VOL. I. |