tion. After the conclufion of the peace with Holland, there was one stampt with the following Legend -Redeant Commercia Flandris. The thought is here great enough, but in my opinion it would have looked much greater in two or three words of profe. I think truly, fays Eugenius, it is ridiculous enough to make the Infcription run like a piece of verse, when it is not taken out of an old Author. But I would fain have your opinion on fuch Infcriptions as are borrowed from the Latin Poets. I have seen several of this fort that have been very prettily applied, and I fancy when they are chofen with art, they fhould not be thought unworthy of a place in your Medals.

Which ever fide I take, fays Philander, I am like to have a great party against me. Thofe who have formed their relifh on old Coins, will by no means allow of fuch an invocation: on the contrary, your men of wit will be apt to look on it as an improvement on ancient Medals. You will oblige us however to let us know what kind of rules you would have obferved in the choice of your quotations, fince you seem to lay a ftrefs on their being chofen with Art. You must know then, fays Eugenius, I do not think it enough that a quotation tells us plain matter of fact, unless it has fome other accidental ornaments to set it off. Indeed, if a great action that feldom happens in the course of human affairs is exactly described in the paffage of an old Poet, it gives the reader a very agreeable surprise, and may therefore deserve a place on a Medal.

Again, if there is more than a fingle circumftance of the action specified in the quotation, it pleases a man to fee an old exploit copied out

as

as it were by a Modern, and running parallel with it in feveral of its particulars.

In the next place, when the quotation is not only apt, but has in it a turn of Wit or Satire, it is ftill the better qualified for a Medal, as it has a double capacity of pleasing.

But there is no Infcription fitter for a Medal, in my opinion, than a quotation, that befides its aptnefs has something in it lofty and fublime: for fuch an one strikes in with the natural greatness of the foul, and produces a high idea of the perfon or action it celebrates, which is one of the principal defigns of a Medal.

It is certainly very pleasant, says Eugenius, to fee a verse of an old Poet, revolting as it were from its original fenfe, and fiding with a modern fubject. But then it ought to do it willingly of its own accord, without being forced to it by any change in the words, or the punctuation: for when this happens, it is no longer the verfe of an ancient Poet, but of him that has converted it to his own ufe.

You have, I believe, by this time exhausted your fubject, fays Philander; and I think the criticisms you have made on the poetical quotations that we so often meet with in our modern

Medals, may be very well applied to the Mottoes of books, and other Infcriptions of the fame nature. But before we quit the Legends of Me-dals, I cannot but take notice of a kind of wit that flourishes very much on many of the modern, efpecially thofe of Germany, when they represent in the Infcription the year in which they were coined. As to mention to you another of Guftavus Adolphus. CHRISTVS DVX ERGO TRIVMPHVS. If you take the pains to

pick out the figures from the feveral words, and range them in their proper order, you will find they amount to 1627, the year in which the Medal was coined; for do not you obferve some of the letters distinguish themselves from the rest, and top it over their fellows? thefe you must confider in a double capacity, as letters and as cyphers. Your laborious German Wits will turn you over a whole Dictionary for one of these ingenious Devices. You would fancy perhaps they were fearching after an apt claffical term, but instead of that, they are looking outa word that has an L. an M. or a D. in it. When therefore you fee any of thefe Infcriptions, you are not fo much to look in them for the thought, as for the year of the Lord. There are foreign Universities where this kind of wit is fo much in vogue, that as you praise a man in England for being an excellent Philofopher or Poet, it is an ordinary character among them to be a great Chronogrammatift. These are probably, fays Cynthio, fome of thofe mild provinces of Acroftic land, that Mr. Dryden has affigned to his Anagrams, Wings and Altars. We have now done, I fuppofe, with the Legend of a Medal. I think you promised us in the next place to speak of the Figures.

As we had a great deal of talk on this part of a Coin, replied Philander, in our discourse on the Usefulness of ancient Medals, I fhall only juft touch on the chief heads wherein the Ancient and the Modern differ. In the first place, the Romans always appear in the proper Drefs of their country, infomuch that you fee the little variations of the Mode in the drapery of the Medal. They would have thought it ridiculous

to

to have drawn an Emperor of Rome in a Grecian Cloke or a Phrygian Mitre. On the contrary, our modern Medals are full of Toga's and Tunica's, Trabea's and Paludamentums, with a multitude of the like antiquated garments, that have not been in fashion these thousand years. You fee very often a King of England or France dreffed up like a Julius Cæfar. One would think they had a mind to pass themselves upon pofterity for Roman Emperors. The fame obfervation may run through feveral customs and religions, that appear in our ancient and modern Coins. Nothing is more usual than to fee Allufions to Roman customs and ceremonies on the Medals of our own nation. Nay very often they carry the figure of a heathen god. If pofterity takes its notions of us from our Medals, they muft fancy one of our Kings paid a great devotion to Minerva, that another was a profeffed Worshipper of Apollo, or at beft that our whole religion was a mixture of Paganism and Christianity. Had the old Romans been guilty of the fame extravagance, there would have been fo great a confufion in their Antiquities, that their Coins would not have had half the ufes we now find in them. We ought to look on Medals as fo many monuments configned over to Eternity, that may poffibly last when all other memorials of the fame Age are worn out or loft. They are a kind of Present that those who are actually in Being make over to fuch as lie hid within the depths of Futurity. Were they only defigned to inftruct the three or four fucceeding generations, they are in no great danger of being misunderftood but as they may pass into the hands of a pofterity, that lie many removes from us, and

are

are like to act their part in the world, when its governments, manners and religions may be quite altered; we ought to take a particular care not to make any falfe reports in them, or to charge them with any Devices that may look doubtful or unintelligible.

I have lately feen, fays Eugenius, a Medallic hiftory of the prefent King of France. One might expect, methinks, to fee the Medals of that nation in the highest perfection, when there is a fociety penfioned and fet apart on purpose for the defigning of them.

n

We will examine them, if you please, says Philander, in the light that our foregoing obfervations have fet them: but on this condition that you do not look on the faults I find in them any more than my own private opinion. In the firft. place then, I think it impoffible to learn from the French Medals either the religion, cuitom or habits of the French nation. You fee on fome of them the Crofs of our Saviour, and on others Hercules' his Club. In one you have an Angel, and in another a Mercury. I fancy, fays Cynthio, pofterity would be as much puzzled on the religion of Louis le Grand, were they to learn it from his Medals, as we are at prefent on that of Conftantine the Great. It is certain, fays Philander, there is the fame mixture of Chriftian and Pagan in their Coins; nor is there a lefs confufion in their customs. For example, what relation is there between the figure of a Bull, and the planting of a French colony in America? The Romans made ufe of this type in allufion to one of their own customs at the fending out of a colony. But for the French, a Ram, a Hog, or an Elephant,

would