THE ANTIQUARIANS. A Tale.
Some antiquarians grave and loyal, Incorporate by charter royal,
Last winter, on a Thursday night, were Met in full senate at the Mitre. The president, like Mr. Mayor, Majestic took the elbow chair; And gravely sat in due decorum With a fine gilded mace before him. Upon the table were display'd A British knife without a blade, A comb of Anglo-Saxon real, A patent with King Alfred's steel, Two rusted mutilated prongs, Suppos'd to be St. Dunstan's tongs, With which he, as the story goes, Once took the devil by the nose.
Awhile they talk'd of ancient modes, Of manuscripts, and Gothic codes, Of Roman altars, camps
Of Caledonian shields and churns ; Whether the Druid slipt or broke The misletoe upon the oak? If Hector's spear was made of ash? Or Agamemnon wore a sash? If Cleopatra dress'd in blue, And wore her tresses in a queue?
At length a dean who understood All that had pass'd before the flood, And could in half a minute shew ye A pedigree as high as Noah,
Got up, and with a solemn air, First humbly bowing to the chair,
"If aught," says he, " deserves a name Immortal as the roll of fame, This venerable group of sages Shall flourish in the latest ages, And wear an amaranthine crown When kings and empires are unknown. Perhaps e'en I whose humbler knowledge Ranks me the lowest of your college, May catch from your meridian day At least a transitory ray :
For I, like you, through ev'ry clime, Have trac'd the step of hoary Time, And gather'd up his sacred spoils With more than half a cent'ry's toils. Whatever virtue, deed, or name, Antiquity has left to fame,
In ev'ry age, and ev'ry zone,
copper, marble, wood, or stone, In vases, flow'r-pots, lamps, and sconces, Intaglios, cameos, gems, and bronzes, These eyes have read through many a crust Of lacker, varnish, grease, and dust; And now, as glory fondly draws My soul to win your just applause, I here exhibit to your view A medal fairly worth Peru, Found, as tradition says, at Rome, Near the Quirinal Catacomb."
He said, and from a purse of satin, Wrapp'd in a leaf of monkish latin,
And taught by many a clasp to join, Drew out a dirty copper coin.
Still as pale midnight when she throws On heaven and earth a deep repose, Lost in a trance too big to speak, The Synod ey'd the fine antique; Examin'd ev'ry point and part, With all the critic skill of art; Rung it alternate on the ground, In hopes to know it by the sound; Apply'd the tongue's acuter sense To taste its genuine excellence, And with an animated gust Lick'd up the consecrated rust: Nor yet content with what the eye By its own sun-beams could descry, To ev'ry corner of the brass
They clapp'd a microscopic glass; And view'd in raptures o'er and o'er The ruins of the learned ore.
Pythagoras, the learned sage, As you may read in Pliny's page, With much of thought, and pains, and care,
Found the proportions of a square,
Which threw him in such frantic fits As almost robb'd him of his wits, And made him, awful as his name was, Run naked through the streets of Samos. With the same spirits Doctor Romans, A keen civilian of the Commons, Fond as Pythagoras to claim The wreath of literary fame,
Sprung in a phrensy from his place Across the table and the mace, And swore by Varo's shade that he Conceiv'd the medal to a T.
"It rings," says he, "so pure, and chaste, And has so classical a taste,
That we may fix its native home Securely in imperial Rome.
That rascal, Time, whose hand purloins From science half her kings and coins, Has eat, you see, one half the tale, And hid the other in a veil :
But if, through cankers, rust, and fetters, Mishapen forms, and broken letters,
The critic's eye may dare to trace An evanescent name, and face, This injur'd medal will appear,
As mid-day sunshine, bright and clear. The female figure on a throne Of rustic work in Tiber' stone, Without a sandal, zone, or boddice, Is Liberty's immortal goddess; Whose sacred fingers seem to hold A taper wand, perhaps of gold; Which has, if I mistake not, on it The Pileus, or Roman bonnet : By this the medallist would mean To paint that fine domestic scene, When the first Brutus nobly gave His freedom to the worthy slave." When a spectator 's got the jaundice, Each object, or by sea, or land, is
Discolour'd by a yellow hue, Though naturally red, or blue: This was the case with 'squire Thynne, A barrister of Lincoln's Inn,
Who never lov'd to think or speak Of any thing but ancient Greek: In all disputes his sacred guide was The very venerable Suidas;
And though he never deign'd to look In Salkeld, Littleton, or Coke, And liv'd a stranger to the fees
And practice of the Common-Pleas; He studied with such warmth, and awe, The volumes of Athenian law, That Solon's self no better knew The legislative plan he drew; Nor cou'd Demosthenes withstand The rhetic of his wig, and band; When, full of zeal, and Aristotle, And fluster'd by a second bottle, He taught the orator to speak His periods in correcter Greek.
Methinks," quoth he, "this little piece Is certainly a child of Greece: Th' Ærugo has a tinge of blue Exactly of the Attic hue; And, if the taste's acuter feel May judge of medals as of veal, I'll take my oath the mould and rust Are made of Attic dew and dust. Critics may talk, and rave, and foam, Of Brutus, and imperial Rome,
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