verse.

fancy I could count over to you in Latin and Greek If you will drink a dish of tea with me tomorrow morning, I will lay my whole collection before you. I cannot tell, says Cynthio, how the poets will succeed in the explication of coins, to which they are generally very great strangers. We are, however, obliged to you for preventing us with the offer of a kindness that you might well imagine we should have asked you.

Our three friends had been so intent on their discourse, that they had rambled very far into the fields, without taking notice of it. Philander first put them in mind, that, unless they turned back quickly, they would endanger being benighted. Their conversation ran insensibly into other subjects; but as I design only to report such parts of it as have any relation to medals, I shall leave them to return home as fast as they please, without troubling myself with their talk on the way thither, or with their ceremonies at parting.

DIALOGUE II.

SOME of the finest treatises of the most polite Latin and Greek writers are in dialogue, as many very valuable pieces of French, Italian, and English, appear in the same dress. I have, sometimes, however, been very much distasted at this way of writing, by reason of the long prefaces and exordiums into which it often betrays an author. There is so much time taken up in ceremony, that before they enter on their subject the dialogue is half ended. To avoid the fault I have found in others, I shall not

trouble myself, nor my reader, with the first salutes of our three friends, nor with any part of their discourse over the tea-table. We will suppose the china dishes taken off, and a drawer of medals supplying their room. Philander, who is to be the hero of my dialogue, takes it in his hand, and, addressing himself to Cynthio and Eugenius, I will first of all, says he, show you an assembly of the most virtuous ladies that you have ever perhaps, conversed with. I do not know, says Cynthio, regarding them, what their virtue may be, but methinks they are a little fantastical in their dress. You will find, says Philander, there is good sense in it. They have not a single ornament that they cannot give a reason for. I was going to ask you, says Eugenius, in what country you find these ladies. But I see they are some of those imaginary persons you told us of last night, that inhabit old coins, and appear no where else but on the reverse of a medal. Their proper country, says Philander, is the breast of a good man.: for I think they are most of them the figures of virtues. It is a great compliment, methinks, to the sex, says Cynthio, that your virtues are generally shown in petticoats. I can give you no other reason for it, says Philander, but because they chanced to be of the feminine gender in the learned languages. You will find, however, something bold and masculine in the air and posture of the first figure, which is that of Virtue herself, and agrees very well with the description we find of her in Silius Italicus*.

Virtutis dispar habitus, frons hirta, nec unquam
Composita mutata comá, stans vultus, et ure

Incessuque viro propior, lætique pudoris,

Celsa humeris, niveæ fulgebat stamine palla. SIL.IT.lib.15.

* Firt series. Fig. 1.

-A different form did Virtue wear,

Rude from her forehead fell th' unplaited hair,
With dauntless mien aloft she rear'd her head,
And next to manly was the virgin's tread;

Her height, her sprightly blush, the goddess show,
And robes unsullied as the falling snow.

Virtue and Honour had their temples bordering on each other, and are sometimes both on the same coin, as in the following one of Galba*. Silius Italicus makes them companions in the glorious equipage that he gives his Virtue.

Mecum Honor, et Laudes, et læto Gloria vultu,[Virtus loquitur. Et Decus, et niveis Victoria concolor alis. Ibid.

With me the foremost place let Honour gain, [Virtue speaks. Fame, and the Praises mingling in her train;

Gay Glory next, and Victory on high,

White like myself, on snowy wings shall fly.

Tu cujus placido posuere in pectore sedem

Blandus Honos, hilarisque (tamen cum pondere) Virtus.

STAT. SIL. lib. 2.

The head of Honour is crowned with a laurel, as Martial has adorned his Glory after the same manner, which indeed is but another name for the same person.

Mitte coronatas Gloria mæsta comas.

I find, says Cynthio, the Latins mean courage by the figure of Virtue, as well as by the word itself. Courage was esteemed the greatest perfection among them, and therefore went under the name of Virtue in general, as the modern Italians give the same name on the same account to the knowledge of curiosities. Should a Roman painter at present draw the picture of Virtue, instead of the spear and paratonium that she bears on old coins, he would give her a bust in one hand and a fiddle in the other.

The next, says Philander, is a lady of a more peaceful character, and had her temple at Rome*.

-Salutato crepitat Concordia nido.

She is often placed on the reverse of an imperial coin, to show the good understanding between the emperor and empress. She has always a cornucopia in her hand, to denote that plenty is the fruit of concord. After this short account of the goddess, I desire you will give me your opinion of the deity that is described in the following verses of Seneca, who would have her propitious to the marriage of Jason and Creusa. He mentions her by her qualities, and not by her name.

Asperi

Martis sanguineas quæ cohibet manus,
Que dat belligeris fœdera gentibus,

Et cornu retinet divite copiam.

Who sooths great Mars the warrior god,
And checks his arm distain'd with blood,
Who joins in leagues the jarring lands,
The horn of plenty fills her hands.

SEN. MED. act. 1.

The description, says Eugenius, is a copy of the figure we have before us: and for the future, instead of any further note on this passage, I would have the reverse you have shown us stamped on the side of it. The interpreters of Seneca, says Philander, will understand the precedent verses as a description of Venus, though in my opinion there is only the first of them that can aptly relate to her, which at the same time agrees as well with Concord: and that this was a goddess who used to interest herself in marriages, we may see in the following description.

* Fig. 3.

-Jamdudum poste reclinis,
Quærit Hymen thalamis intactum dicere carmen,
Quo vatem mulcere queat; dat Juno verenda
Vincula, et insigni geminat Concordia tædâ.

STATII EPITHALAMION. SILV. lib. 1.

Already leaning at the door, too long
Sweet Hymen waits to raise the nuptial song,
Her sacred bands majestic Juno lends,

And Concord with her flaming torch attends.

Peace* differs as little in her dress as in her character from Concord. You may observe in both these figures, that the vest is gathered up before them, like an apron, which you must suppose filled with fruits as well as the cornu-copia. It is to this part of the dress that Tibullus alludes.

At nobis, Pax alma, veni, spicamque teneto,
Perfluat et pomis candidus antè sinus.

Kind Peace, appear,

And in thy right hand hold the wheaten ear,
From thy white lap th' o'erflowing fruits shall fall.

Prudentius has given us the same circumstance in his description of avarice.

-Avaritia gremio præcincta capaci.

PRUD. PSYCHOMACHIA.

How proper the emblems of Plenty are to Peace,

may be seen in the same poet.

Interea Pax arva colat, Pax candida primùm

Duxit araturos sub juga curva boves ;

Pax aluit vites, et succos condidit uvæ,

Funderet ut nato testa paterna merum :

Pace bidens vomerque vigent.

TIBUL. El. 10. lib. 1.

She first, white Peace, the earth with plough-shares broke,

And bent the oxen to the crooked yoke,

First rear'd the vine, and hoarded first with care

The father's vintage for his drunken heir.

Fig. 4.