And when up ten steep flopes you've di agg'd your thighs,
Just at his Study-door he'll bless your eyes.
His Study! with what Authors is it stor'd?
In Books, not Authors, curious is my Lord;
To all their dated backs he turns you round;
These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound.
Lo, fome are Vellom, and the rest as good
For all his Lordship knows, but they are Wood.
For Locke or Milton, 'tis in vain to look,
These shelves admit not any modern book.
And now the Chapel's filver bell you hear,
That fummons you to all the Pride of Prayer:
Light quirks of Music, broken and uneven.
Make the foul dance upon a jig to Heaven.
On painted Cielings you devoutly stare,
Where sprawl the Saints of Verrio or Laguerre,
Or gilded clouds in fair expanfion lie,
And bring all Paradise before your eye.
To reft, the Cushion and foft Dean invite,
Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.
But hark! the chiming Clocks to dinner call;
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble Hall:
The rich Buffet well-colour'd Serpents grace,
And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face.
Is this a dinner? this a genial room?
No, 'tis a Temple, and a Hecatomb.
A folemn Sacrifice perform'd in state,
You drink by measure, and to minutes eat.
So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear
Sancho's dread 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, tantaliz'd in state,
And complaisantly help'd to all I hate,
Treated, caress'd, and tir'd, I take my leave,
Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve;
I curse such lavish cost, and little skill,
And swear 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,
The Labourer bears: What his hard Heart denies,
His charitable Vanity supplies.
Another age shall see the golden Ear Imbrown the Slope, and nod on the Parterre, Deep Harvest bury all his pride has plann'd, And laughing Ceres reassume the land.
Who then shall grace, or who improve the Soil?
Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like Boyle.
'Tis Ufe alone that sanctifies Expence,
And Splendor borrows all her rays from Senfe.
His Father's Acres who enjoys in peace,
Or makes his Neigbours glad, if he increase:
Whose chearful Tenants bless their yearly toil,
Yet to their Lord owe more than to the foil;
Whose ample Lawns are not asham'd to feed
The milky heifer and deferving steed;
Whose rifing forests, not for pride or show,
But future Buildings, future Navies, grow:
Let his plantations stretch from down to down,
First shade a Country, and then raise a Town.
You too proceed ! make falling Arts your care,
Erect new wonders, and the old repair;
Jones and Palladio to themselves restore,
And be whate'er Vitruvius was before:
Till Kings call forth th' Ideas of your mind,
(Proud to accomplish what fuch hands design'd)
Bid Harbours open, public Ways extend,
Bid Temples, worthier of the God, afcend;
Bid the broad Arch the dangerous flood contain,
The Mole projected break the roaring Main;
Back to his bounds their subject sea command,
And roll obedient Rivers through the Land;
These Honours, Peace to Happy Britain brings,
These are Imperial Works, and worthy Kings.
TO MR. ADDISON,
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 some time before he was Secretary of State; but not published 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.
As the third Epistle 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; so this treats of one circumstance of that Vanity, as it appears in the common collectors of old coins: and is, therefore, a corollary to the fourth.
S
EE the wild Waste of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own fad fepulchre appears,
With nodding arches broken temples spread!
The very Tombs now vanish'd like their dead;
Imperial wonders rais'd on Nations spoil'd,
Where mix'd with Slaves the groaning Martyr toil'd :
Huge Theatres, that now unpeopled Woods,
Now drain'd a distant country of her Floods:
Fanes, which admiring Gods with pride furvey,
Statues of Men, scarce less alive than they!
Some felt the filent stroke of mouldering age,
Some hoftile 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 purfue,
And give to Titus old Vefpafian's due.
Ambition figh'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, the now contracts her vast design, And all her Triumphs shrink into a Coin. A narrow orb each crouded conquest keeps, Beneath her Palm here sad Judea weeps.. Now scantier limits the proud Arch confine, And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine; A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd, 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 fubjected to our eye
Gods, Emperors, Heroes, Sages, Beauties, lie.
With sharpen'd fight pale Antiquaries pore,
Th' infcription value, but the ruft adore.
This the blue varnish, that the green endears,
The facred ruft of twice ten hundred years!
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