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'Tis Ufe alone that fanctifies Expence,

180

185

And Splendor borrows all her rays from Sense.
His Father's Acres who enjoys in peace,
Or makes his Neighbours glad, if he encrease:
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 deserving steed;
Whose rifing Forefts, 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. 190

NOTES.

VER. 179, 180. 'Tis Ufe alone that fanctifies Expence, And Splendor borrows all her rays from fenfe.] Here the poet, to make the examples of good Taste the better understood, introduces them with a fummary of his Precepts in these two fublime lines: for, the confulting Ufe is beginning with Senfe; and the making Splendor or Tafte borrow all its rays from thence, is going on with Senfe, after fhe has led us up to Tafte. The

art of this can never be sufficiently 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 indeed, 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 were certainly firft in its intention.

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

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195

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 Hor. Lib. ii. Sat. 2.

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 mifchiefs; many of the Highways throughout England were hardly paffable; and most of those which were repair

ed by Turnpikes were made jobbs for private lucre, and infamoufly executed, even to the entrances of London itself: The propofal of building a Bridge at Weftminfter had been petition'd against and rejected; but in two years after the publica

Bid the broad Arch the dang'rous Flood contain,

The Mole projected break the roaring Main; 200
Back to his bounds their fubject Sea command,
And roll obedient Rivers thro' the Land:
These Honours, Peace to happy Britain brings,
These are Imperial Works, and worthy Kings.

NOTES.

tion of this poem, an A&t for building a Bridge pafs'd thro' 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
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.

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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 vanifh'd like their dead!

NOTES.

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. P.

EPIST. V.] As the third Epistle treated of the ex

Imperial wonders rais'd on Nations spoil❜d,

5

Where mix'd with Slaves the groaning Martyr

toil'd:

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, scarce less alive than they!

NOTES.

ΙΟ

tremes of Avarice and Pro- | is, therefore, a corollary to fufion; and the fourth took the fourth. 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

VER. 6. Where mix'd with flaves the groaning Martyr toil'd] The inattentive reader might wonder how this circumstance came to find a place here. But let him compare it with y 13, 14, and he will fee the Reason,

Barbarian blindness, Chriftian zeal confpire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.

For the Slaves mentioned | ruin what those were so in-
above were of the fame na-juriously employed in rear-
tion with the Barbariansing for the poet never
here and the Chriftians lofeth fight of his great prin-
here, the Succeffors of the ciple.
Martyrs there: Providence
ordaining, that these should

VER. 9. Fanes, which admiring Gods with pride

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