I curfe fuch lavish coft, and little skill,

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

The Lab'rer bears: What his hard heart denies,
His charitable Vanity fupplies.

Another age shall fee the golden Ear

Imbrown the Slope, and nod on the Parterre,
Deep Harvests bury all his pride has plann'd,
And laughing Ceres re-affume the land.

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175

Who then shall grace, or who improve the Soil? Who plants like BATHURST, or who builds like BOYLE. 'Tis Ufe alone that fanctifies Expence,

And splendor borrows all her rays from Sense.

His Father's Acres who enjoys in peace,

;

Or makes his Neighbours glad, if he increase:
Whofe chearful Tenants bless their yearly toil,
Yet to their Lord owe more than to the foil
Whofe ample Lands are not afham'd to feed
The milky heifer and deferving fteed;
Whole rifing Forefts, not for pride or thow,
But future Buildings, future Navies, grow:
Let his plantations stretch from down to down,
First shade a Country, and then raise a Town.

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190

VER. 169. Yet hence the Poor, &c.] The Moral of the whole, where PROVIDENCE is juftified in giving Wealth to thofe who fquauder it in this manner. A bad Tafte employs more hands, and diffufes Expence more than a good one. This recurs to what is lad down in Bcok I. Ep. ii. ver. 230-7, and in the Epiftle preceeding this, ver. 161, &c.

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 defign'd,)
Bid Harbours open, public Ways extend,
Bid Temples, worthier of the God, ascend;

195

VER. 195, 197, &c. 'Till Kings Bid Harbours open &c.] The poet after having touched upon the proper objects of Magnificence and Expence, in the private works of great men, comes to thofe great and public works which become a prince. This poem was published in the year 1732, when fome of the new-built churches, by the act of Queen Anne, were ready to fall, being founded in boggy land (which is fatirically alluded to in our author's imitation of Horace, Lib. ii. Sat. 2.

Shall half the new-built Churches round thee fall)

others very vilely executed, through fraudulent cabals between undertakers, officers, &c. Dagenham-breach had done very great mischiefs; many of the Highways throughout England were hardly paffable; and most of those which were repaired by Turnpikes were made jobs for private lucre, and infamously executed, even to the entrance of London itself: The propofal of building a Bridge at Westminster had been petitioned against and rejected; but in two years after the publication of this poem, an Act for building a Bridge paffed through both houses. After many debates in the committee, the execution was left to the carpenter above-mentioned, who would have made it a wooden one; to which our author alludes in thefe lines,

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

See the notes on that place.

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Bid the broad Arch the dan'grous Flood contain,
The Mole projected break the roaring Main;
Back to his bounds their fubject fea command,
And roll obedient Rivers thro' the Land:
Thefe Honours, Peace to happy Britain brings,
Thefe are Imperial Works, and worthy Kings.

MORAL ESSAYS.

EPISTLE V.

To Mr ADDISON.

Occafioned by his Dialogues on MEDALS.

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 like their dead! Imperial wonders rais'd on Nations spoil'd, Where mix'd with Slaves the groaning Martyr toil'd; VOL. II.

S

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EPISTLE V.] This was originally written in the year 1715, when Mr Addifon intended to publifh 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.

Huge Theatres, that now unpeopled Woods,
Now drain'd a diftant Country of her Floods:
Fanes, which admiring Gods with pride furvey,
Statues of Men, fcarce lefs alive than they!
Some felt the filent ftroke of mould'ring age,
Some hoftile fury, fome religious rage.
Barbarian blindness, Chriftian zeal conspire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.

ΙΟ

Perhaps, by its own ruins fav'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 Vefpafian's due.

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Ambition figh'd: fhe found it vain to trust
The faithless Column and the crumbling Bust:
Huge moles, whofe fhadow ftretch'd from fhore to shore,
Their ruins perish'd, and their place no more!
Convinc'd, fhe now contracts her vast design,
And all her Triumphs fhrink into a Coin.

A narrow orb each crouded conqueft 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 fmall 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 fubjected to our eye
Gods, Emp'rors, Heroes, Sages, Beauties, lie.
With fharpen'd fight pale Antiquaries pore,

Th' infcription value, but the ruft adore.

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