cut fhort the whole ftudy of antiquities, and perhaps be much more useful to Universities than thofe collections of Whale-bone and Crocodilefkins in which they commonly abound. You will find it very difficult, fays Cynthio, to perfuade those focieties of learned men to fall in with your project. They will tell you that things of this importance muft not be taken on truft; you ought to learn them among the Claffic Authors and at the fountain-head. Pray confider what a figure a man would make in the republic of letters, should he appeal to your University-wardrobe, when they expect a sentence out of the Re Veftiaria? or how do you think a man that has read Vegetius will relish your Roman Arsenal ? In the mean time, fays Philander, you find on Medals every thing that you could meet with in your magazine of antiquities, and when you have built your arfenals, wardrobes, and facrifties, it is from Medals that you must fetch their furniture. It is here too that you fee the figures of feveral Inftruments of mufic, mathematics and mechanics. One might make an entire galley out of the plans that are to be met with on the reverfes of feveral old coins. Nor are they only charged with Things, but with many ancient customs, as facrifices, triumphs, congiaries, allocutions, decurfions, lectisterniums, and a thousand other antiquated names and ceremonies that we should rot have had fo juft a notion of, were they not ftill preferved on Coins. I might add under this head of antiquities, that we find on Medals the manner of fpelling in the old Roman infcriptions. That is, fays Cynthio, we find that Felix is never written with an a dipthongue, and that in Aguftus's

guftus's days Civis stood for Cives, with other fecrets in Orthography of the fame importance.

It

To come then to a more weighty use, says Philander, it is certain that Medals give a very great light to history, in confirming fuch paffages as are true in old Authors, in fettling fuch as are told after different manners, and in recording fuch as have been omitted. In this cafe a cabinet of Medals is a body of hiftory. It was indeed the best way in the world to perpetuate the memory of great actions, thus to coin out the life of an Emperor, and to put every great exploit into the mint. It was a kind of Printing, before the art was invented. is by this means that Monfieur Vaillant has difembroiled a hiftory that was loft to the world before his time, and out of a fhort collection of Medals has given us a chronicle of the Kings of Syria. For this too is an advantage Medals have over books, that they tell their story much quicker, and fum up a whole volume in twenty or thirty reverses. They are indeed the best epitomes in the world, and let you fee with one caft of an eye the fubftance of above a hundred pages. Another ufe of Medals is, that they not only fhew you the actions of an Emperor, but at the fame time mark out the year in which they were performed. Every exploit has its date fet to it. A feries of an Emperor's Coins is his life digefted into annals. Hiftorians feldom break their relation with a mixture of chronology, nor diftribute the particulars of an Emperor's ftory into the feveral years of his reign or where they do it they often differ in their feveral periods. Here therefore it is much

fafer

fafer to quote a Medal than an Author, for in this cafe you do not appeal to a Suetonius or a Lampridius, but to the Emperor himself, or to the whole Body of a Roman Senate. Befides that a Coin is in no danger of having its characters altered by copiers and tranfcribers. This I must confefs, fays Cynthio, may in fome cafes be of great moment, but confidering the subjects on which your chronologers are generally employed, I fee but little ufe that rises from it. For example, what fignifies it to the world whether fuch an Elephant appeared in the Amphi-theatre in the second or the third year of Domitian? Or what am I the wifer for knowing that Trajan was in the fifth year of his Tribunefhip when he entertained the people with fuch a Horfe-race or Bull-baiting? Yet it is the fixing of these great periods that gives a man the fift rank in the republic of letters, and recommends him to the world for a perfon of various reading and profound erudition.

You must always give your men of great reading leave to fhow their talents on the meanest subjects, fays Eugenius; it is a kind of shooting at rovers: where a man lets fly his arrow without taking any aim, to fhew his strength. But there is one advantage, fays he, turning to Philander, that feems to me very confiderable, although your Medallifts feldom throw it into the account, which is the great help to memory one finds in Medals: for my own part I am very much embarraffed in the names and ranks of the feveral Roman Emperors, and find it difficult to recollect upon occafion the different parts of their history: Medallifts upon the firft naming of an

but your

Empe

Emperor will immediately tell you his age, family and life. To remember where he enters in the fucceffion, they only confider in what part of the cabinet he lies; and by running over in their thoughts fuch a particular drawer, will give you an account of all the remarkable parts of his reign.

I thank you, fays Philander, for helping me to an use that perhaps I should not have thought on. But there is another of which I am fure you could not but be fenfible when you were at Rome. I must own to you it surprised me to fee my Ciceroni so well acquainted with the bufts and ftatues of all the great people of antiquity. There was not an Emperor or Emprefs but he knew by fight, and as he was feldom without Medals in his pocket, he would often fhew us the fame face on an old Coin that we saw in the Statue. He would discover a Commodus through the difguife of the club and lion's skin, and find out such a one to be Livia that was dreffed like a Ceres. Let a bust be never up fo disfigured, they have a thousand marks by which to decipher it. They will know a Zenobia by the fitting of her Diadem, and will distinguish the Fauftina's by their different way of tying up their hair. Oh! Sir, fays Cynthio, they will go a great deal farther, they will give you the name and titles of a Statue that has loft his nose and ears; or if there is but half a beard remaining, will tell you at firft fight who was the owner of it. Now I must confefs to you, I used to fancy they imposed upon me an Emperor or Emprefs at pleasure, rather than appear ignorant.

All this however is easily learnt from Medals, fays Philander, where you may fee likewise the plans of many the moft confiderable buildings of

Old

Old Rome. There is an ingenious Gentleman of our own nation extremely well versed in this ftudy, who has a defign of publishing the whole hiftory of Architecture, with its feveral improvements and decays as it is to be met with on ancient Coins. He has affured me that he has obferved all the nicety of proportion in the figures of the different orders that compofe the buildings on the best preserved Medals. You here fee the copies of fuch Ports and triumphal Arches as there are not the leaft traces of in the places where they once ftood. You have here the models of feveral ancient Temples, though the Temples themselves, and the Gods that were worshipped in them, are perished many hundred years ago. Or if there are still any foundations or ruins of former edifices, you may learn from Coins what was their Architecture when they stood whole and entire. These are buildings which the Goths and Vandals could not demolish, that are infinitely more durable than stone or marble, and will perhaps laft as long as the earth itself. They are in short so many real monuments of Brass, Quod non imber edax non aquilo impotens Poffit diruere, aut innumerabilis

Annorum feries, & fuga temporum.

Which eating show'rs, nor northwind's feeble blast,

Nor whirle of time, nor flight of years can wafte. Mr. Creech.

This is a noble Panegyric on an old copper Coin, fays Cynthio. But I am afraid a little malicious ruft would demolish one of your brazen

edifices