Arcanum radiant oculi jubar, igneus ora
Cingit honos, rutilo cognatum vertice fidus
Attollit criftatus apex, tenebrafque ferend
Luce fecat-

Claud. de Phoen,

His fiery eyes fhoot forth a glitt'ring ray,
And round his head ten thousand glories play:
High on his creft, a ftar celestial bright
Divides the darkness with its piercing light.

Procul ignea lucet

Ales, odorati redolent cui cinnama bufti.

Claud. de laud. Stil. L. 2.

If you have a mind to compare this scale of beings with that of Hehod, I fhall give it you in a translation of that poet.

Ter binos deciefque novem fuper exit in annos
Jufta fenefcentum quos implet vita virorum,
Hos novies fuperat vivendo garrula cornix:
Et quater egreditur cornicis fæcula cervus.
Alipidem cervum ter vincit corvus: at illum
Multiplicat novies Phenix, reparabilis ales.
Quam vos perpetuo decies prævertitis ævo
Nymphe hamadryades: quarum longiffima vita eft:
Hi cohibent fines vivacia fata animantum.

Aufon. Eidyll. 18,

The utmost age to man the gods affign
Are winters three times two, and ten times nine:
Poor man nine times the prating dawes exceed:
Three times the dawe's the deer's more lafting
breed:

The

The deer's full thrice the raven's race outrun:
Nine times the raven Titan's feather'd fon:
Beyond his age, with youth and beauty crown'd,
The Hamadryads fhine ten ages round:

Their breath the longest is the fates bestow:
And fuch the bounds to mortal lives below.

A man had need be a good arithmetician, fays Cynthio, to understand this author's works. His defcription runs on like a multiplication table. But methinks the poets ought to have agreed a little better in the calculations of a bird's life that was probably of their own creation.

We generally find a great confufion in the traditions of the ancients, fays

FIG 14. Philander.

Philander. It feems to me, from the next medal, it was an opinion among them, that the Phenix renewed herself at the beginning of the great year, and the return of the golden age. This opinion I find touched upon in a couple of lines in Claudian.

Quicquid ab externis ales longæva colonis
Colligit, optati referens exordia facli.

Claud. de rapt. Prof. Lib. 2.

The perfon in the midft of the circle is fuppofed to be Jupiter, by the author that has publifhed this medal, but I fhould rather take it for the figure of time. I remember

I

I have seen at Rome an antique statue of time, with a wheel or hoop of marble in his hand, as Seneca defcribes him, and not with a ferpent as he is generally reprefented.

-properat curfu

Vita citato, volucrique die
Rota præcipitis volvitur anni.

Herc. fur. A&t. 1.

Life pofts away,

And day from day drives on with swift career The wheel that hurries on the headlong year.

As the circle of marble in his hand represents the common year, fo this that encompaffes him is a proper reprefentation of the great year, which is the whole round and comprehenfion of time. For when this is finished, the heavenly bodies are fuppofed to begin their courfes anew, and to measure over again the several periods and divifions of years, months, days, &c. into which the great year is distinguished,

-confumto, magnus qui dicitur, anno Rurfus in antiquum venient vaga fidera curfum: Qualia difpofiti fteterant ab origine mundi.

Aufon. Eidyl. 18.

When round the great platonic year has turn'd, In their old ranks the wandring ftars fhall stand As when first marshall'd by, th' Almighty's hand.

Το

To fum up therefore the thoughts of this
medal. The infcription teaches us that the
whole defign muft refer to the golden age
which it lively reprefents, if we fuppofe the
circle that encompaffes Time, or if
you please
Jupiter, fignifies the finishing of the
great
year, and that the Phenix figures out the
beginning of a new feries of time. So that
the compliment on this medal to the Em-
peror Adrian, is in all refpects the fame that
Virgil makes to Pollio's fon, at whose birth
he fuppofes the annus magnus or platonical
year run out, and renewed again with the
opening of the golden age.

Magnus ab integro faclorum nafcitur ordo;
Fam redit et virgo, redeunt faturnia regna:,
Et nova progenies calo demittitur alto.

Virg. Ec. 4.

The time is come the Sibyls long foretold,
And the bleft maid reftores the age of gold,
In the great wheel of Time before enroll'd.
Now a new progeny from heav'n defcends.

nunc adeft mundo dies

}

Ld. Lauderdale.

Supremus ille, qui premat genus impium
Cali ruind; rurfus ut ftirpem novam
Generet renafcens melior: ut quondam tulit
Juvenis tenente regna faturno poli.

Sen. Oet. A&. 2.

-The

-The last great day is come,

When earth and all her impious fons fhall lie
Crusht in the ruins of the falling sky,

Whence fresh fhall rife, her new-born realms. to grace,

A pious-offspring and a purer race,

Such as ere-while in golden ages fprung,
When Saturn govern'd and the world was young.

You may compare the defign of this reverse, if you please, with one of Conftantine, fo far as the Phenix is concerned in both. As for the other figure, we may have occafion to speak of it in another place. Vid. 15 figure. King of France's medalions.

The next figure fhadows out FIG. 16. Eternity to us, by the fun in one hand and the moon in the other, which in the language of facred poetry is as long as the fun and moon endureth. The heathens made choice of thefe lights as apt fymbols of Eternity, because, contrary to all fublunary beings, though they feem to perish every night, they renew themselves every morning.

Soles occidere et redire poffunt;
Nobis cum femel occidit brevis lux,
Nox eft perpetua una dormienda.
The funs fhall often fall and rife:
But when the fhort-liv'd mortal dies
A night eternal feals his

eyes.

Catul.

Horace,