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Whofe ample Lawns are not asham'd to feed 185
The milky heifer and deserving steed;
Whose rifing Forefts, not for pride or show,
But future Buildings, future Navies, grow:
Let his plantations ftretch from down to down,
First shade a Country, and then raise a Town. 190

COMMENTARY.

Planting, the private advantage of the neighbourhood is first promoted, till, by time, it rises up to a public benefit :

Whofe ample Lawns are not afham'd to feed
The milky heifer and deferving fteed;

Whofe rifing Forefts, not for pride or show,
But future Buildings, future Navies grow.

On the contrary, the wonders of Architecture ought first to be bestowed on the public:

Bid Harbors open, public Ways extend,
Bid Temples, worthier of the God, afcend;
Bid the broad Arch the dang'rous flood contain;
The Mole projected break the roaring main.

And when the public has been properly accommodated and adorn. ed, then, and not till then, the works of private Magnificence may take place. This was the order obferv'd by thofe two great Empires, from whom we received all we have of this polite art: We read not of any Magnificence in the private buildings of Greece or Rome, till the generofity of their public fpirit had adorned the State with Temples, Emporiums, Councilhoufes, Common-Porticos, Baths, and Theatres.

NOTES..

fufficiently admired. But the Expreffion is equal to the Thought. This fanctifying of expence gives us the idea of fomething confecrated and fet apart for facred ufes; and in

deed, 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

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, 195
(Proud to accomplish what such hands defign'd,)
Bid Harbors open, public Ways extend,
Bid Temples, worthier of the God, ascend;
Bid the broad Arch the dang'rous Flood contain,
The Mole projected break the roaring Main; 200

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Shall half the new-built Churches round thee fall)

others were vilely executed, thro' fraudulent cabals between undertakers, officers, &c. Dagenham-breach had done very great mischiefs; many of the Highways throughout England were hardly paffable; and moft of those which were repaired by Turnpikes were made jobs for private lucre, and infamoufly

executed, even to the entrances of London itself: The propofal of building a Bridge at Westminster had been petition'd against and rejected; but in two years after the publication of this poem, an Act for building a Bridge pass'd thro' both houses. After many debates in the committee, the

Back to his bounds their fubject Sea command, And roll obedient Rivers thro' the Land : These Honours, Peace to happy Eritain brings, These are Imperial Works, and worthy Kings.

NOTES.

execution was left to the carpenter above-mentioned, who would have made it a wooden

one; to which our author alludes in these lines,

Who builds a Bridge that never drove a pile?
Should Ripley venture, all the world would smile.

See the notes on that place. P.

MORAL ESSAYS.

EPISTLE V.

To Mr. ADDISON.

Occafion'd by his Dialogues on MEDALS.

S

EE the wild Waste of all-devouring years!

How Rome her own fad Sepulchre appears, With nodding arches, broken temples spread! The very Tombs now vanish'd like their dead!

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5

Imperial wonders rais'd on Nations fpoil'd,
Where mix'd with Slaves the groaningMartyr 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 ftroke of mould'ring age,
Some hoftile fury, fome religious rage.
Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.

NOTES.

10

and is, therefore, a corollary | wonder how this circumftance

to the fourth.

VER. 6. Where mix'd with flaves the groaning Martyr toil'd] The inattentive reader might

y

came to find a place here. But
let him compare it with 13,
14, and he will fee the Rea-
fon,

Barbarian blindness, Chriftian zeal confpire,
And papal piety, and gothic fire.

For the Slaves mentioned above | miring Gods with pride furvey,]
were of the fame nation with
the Barbarians here: and the
Christians here, the Succeffors
of the Martyrs there: Provi-
dence ordaining, that thefe
fhould ruin what those were
fo injuriously employed in rear-
ing: for the poet never lofeth
fight of his great principle.

VER. 9. Fanes, which ad

Thefe Gods were the then Tyrants of Rome, to whom the Empire raised Temples. The epithet, admiring, conveys a ftrong ridicule; that paffion, in the opinion of Philofophy, always conveying the ideas of ignorance and mifery:

Nil admirari prope res eft una, Numici,

Solaque quæ poffit facere & fervare beatum.

Admiration implying our ignorance of other things; pride, our ignorance of ourselves.

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