1 And when up ten steep flopes you've di agg'd your thighs, Juft at his Study-door he'll bless your eyes. His Study! with what Authors is it stor'd? my Lord; And now the Chapel's filver bell you hear, 135 140 On painted Cielings you devoutly stare, 145 Where sprawl the Saints of Verrio or Laguerre, And bring all Paradise before your eye. But hark! the chiming Clocks to dinner call; No, 'tis a Temple, and a Hecatomb. A folemn Sacrifice perform'd in state, You drink by measure, and to minutes eat. 150 155 So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear Sancho's dread Doctor and his Wand were there. 160. Between Between each Act the trembling falvers ring, From soup to sweet-wine, and God bless the King. And complaifantly help'd to all I hate, Treated, carefs'd, and tir'd, I take my leave, I curfe fuch lavish coft, and little skill, 165 And fwear no day was ever past so ill. Yet hence the Poor are cloath'd, the Hungry fed; Health to himself, and to his infants bread, 170 The Labourer bears: What his hard Heart denies, Another age fhall fee the golden Ear Imbrown the Slope, and nod on the Parterre, Deep Harvest bury all his pride has plann'd, And laughing Ceres reaffume the land. Who then shall grace, or who improve the Soil? Who plants like Bathurft, or who builds like Boyle. 'Tis Ufe alone that fanctifies Expence, And Splendor borrows all her rays from Senfe. 175 180 185 190 You You too proceed! make falling Arts your care, 195 200 MORAL Occafioned 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 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 poem, 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. EE the wild Waste of all-devouring years! SE How Rome her own fad fepulchre appears, 5 Fanes, Fanes, which admiring Gods with pride furvey, Perhaps, by its own ruins fav'd from flame. ΙΟ 15 20 Ambition figh'd: the found it vain to trust The faithlefs 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, the now contracts her vast design, And all her Triumphs fhrink into a Coin. A narrow orb each crouded conquest keeps, Beneath her Palm here fad Judea weeps.. Now fcantier limits the proud Arch confine, And scarce are feen the proftrate Nile or Rhine; A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd, And little Eagles wave their wings in gold. 25 30 The Medal, faithful to its charge of fame, Through climes and ages bears each form and name: In one fhort view fubjected to our eye Gods, Emperors, Heroes, Sages, Beauties, lie. 35 Th' infcription value, but the ruft adore. VOL. II. L To |