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Mr. Rowe in Westminster-Abbey.
To the Memory of Nicholas Rowe Efq; his Wife erected this Monument.
HY reliques, Rowe, to this fair fhrine we truft,
And facred, place by Dryden's awful duft:
Beneath a rude and nameless ftone he lies,
To which thy tomb fhall guide inquiring eyes.
Peace to thy gentle fhade, and endless reft!
Bleft in thy genius, in thy love too bleft!
One grateful woman to thy fame supply'd,
What a whole thanklefs land to his deny'd,
Mr. ADDISON's Treatife of Medals.
EE the wild wafte of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own fad fepulchre appears:
With nodding arches, broken temples spread! The very tombs now vanish'd like their dead! Some felt the filent ftroke of mould'ring age; Some, hoftile fury; fome, religious rage; Barbarian blindness, chriftian zeal confpire, And papal piety, and Gothick fire. Perhaps by its own ruin fav'd from flame,
Some bury'd marble half preserves a name;
That name, the learn'd with fierce difputes purfue,
And give to Titus, olď Vespasian's due.
Ambition figh'd. She found it vain to trust
The faithlefs column, and the crumbling buft;
Huge moles, whofe fhadow ftretch from shore to fhore,
Their ruins perifh'd, and their place no more!
Convinc'd, the now contracts her vaft defign;
And all her triumphs fhrink into a coin.
A narrow orb each crowded conqueft keeps;
Beneath her palm here fad Judaa weeps ;
Now fcantier limits the proud arch confine,
And scarce are seen the proftrate Nile and Rhine:
A fmall Euphrates thro' the piece is roll'd;
And little Eagles wave their wings in gold.
The medal, faithful to its charge of fame,
Thro' climes and ages bears each form and name:
In one fhort view, fubjected to our eye,
Gods, emp'rors, heroes, fages, beauties lie.
With fharpen'd fight pale antiquaries pore,
Th' infcription value; but the rust adore:
This, the blue varnish, that, the green endears,
The facred ruft of twice ten hundred years.
To gain Percennius one employs his schemes;
One grafps a Cecrops in ecftatic dreams:
Poor Vadius, long with learned fpleen devour'd,
Can tafte no pleasure fince his fhield was fcour'd;
And Curio, reftlefs by the fair one's fide,
Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride.
Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine,
Touch'd by thy hand, again Rome's glories fhine:~
Her gods, and god-like heroes rife to view,
And all her faded garlands bloom anew.
Nor blush, these ftudies thy regard engage;
These pleas'd the fathers of poetick rage;
The verse and sculpture bore an equal part,
And art reflected images to art.
Oh when shall Britain, confcious of her claim
Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame ?
In living medals fee her wars enroll'd,
And vanquifh'd realms fupply recording gold?-
Here, rifing bold, the patriot's honeft face;
There warriors frowning in hiftoric brafs.
Then future ages with delight fhall fee,
How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks agree:
Or in fair feries laurell'd bards be shown,
A Virgil there, and here an Addison.
Then shall thy Craggs (and let me call him mine)
On the caft ore, another Pollio, fhine;
With aspect open fhall erect his head,
And round the orb with lafting notes be read.
"Statesman, yet friend to truth, in foul fincere, "In action faithful, and in honour clear; "Who broke no promife, ferv'd no private end, "Who gain'd no title, and who loft no friend; "Ennobled by himself, by all approv'd, And prais'd, unenvy'd, by the mufe he lov'd.
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