University of Virginia Library

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 seal,
A patent with king Alfred's seal,
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 antient modes,
Of manuscripts, and gothic codes,
Of Roman altars, camps, and urns,
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 ought, 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, thro' 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 every age, and every zone,
In copper, marble, wood, or stone,
In vases, flow'r-pots, lamps, and sconces,
Intaglios, cameos, gems, and bronzes:
These eyes have read thro' 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 farely 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 heav'n 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;
Applied 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 cou'd 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 thro' 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 phrenzy from his place
Across the table and the mace,
And swore by Varro'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, thro' cankers, rust, and fetters,
Misshapen forms, and broken letters,
The critic's eye may dare to trace
An evanescent name, and face,
This injur'd medal will appear,
As midday sunshine, bright, and clear.
The female figure on a throne
Of rustic work in Tibur' 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,
Tho' 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 antient Greek.
In all disputes his sacred guide was
The very venerable Suidas:
And tho' 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 not better knew
The legislative plan he drew:
Nor cou'd Demosthenes withstand
The rhet'ric of his wig, and band;
When, full of zeal, and Aristotle,
And flustered 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;
But Rome, in all her pomp, and bliss,
Ne'er struck so fine a coin as this.
Besides, tho' Time, as is his way,
Has eat th' inscription quite away,
My eye can trace, divinely true,
In this dark curve a little Mu:
And here, you see, there seems to lie
The ruins of a Doric Xi.
Perhaps, as Athens thought, and writ
With all the pow'rs of style, and wit,
The nymph upon a couch of mallows
Was meant to represent a Pallas:
And the baton upon the ore
Is but the olive-branch she bore.

He said—but Swinton, full of fire,
Asserted that it came from Tyre,
A most divine antique he thought it,
And with an empire wou'd have bought it.
He swore the head in full profile was
Undoubtedly the head of Belus;
And the reverse, tho' hid in shade,
Appear'd a young Sidonian maid,
Whose tresses, buskins, shape, and mien,
Mark'd her for Dido at sixteen;
Perhaps the very year when she was
First married to the rich Sichæus.
The rod, as he cou'd make it clear,
Was nothing but a hunting-spear,
Which all the Tyrian ladies bore
To guard them when they chac'd the boar.
A learned friend, he cou'd confide on,
Who liv'd full thirty years at Sidon,
Once shew'd him, 'midst the seals and rings
Of more than thirty Syrian kings,
A copper piece, in shape, and size,
Exactly that before their eyes,
On which, in high relief, was seen
The image of a Tyrian queen:
Which made him think this other dame
A true Phenician, and the same.

The next, a critic, grave, and big,
Hid in a most enormous wig,
Who in his manner, mien, and shape was
A genuine son of Esculapius,
Wondered that men of such discerning
In all th' abstruser parts of learning
Cou'd err, thro' want of wit, or grace,
So strangely in so plain a case.

It came, says he, or I will be whipt,
From Memphis in the lower Egypt.
Soon as the Nile's prolific flood
Has fill'd the plains with slime and mud,
All Egypt in a moment swarms
With myriads of abortive worms,
Whose appetites wou'd soon devour
Each cabbage, artichoke, and flow'r,
Did not some birds, with active zeal,
Eat up whole millions at a meal,
And check the pest while yet the year
Is ripening into stalk, and ear.
This blessing, visibly divine,
Is finely pourtrayed on the coin;
For here this line, so faint and weak,
Is certainly a bill, or beak;
Which bill, or beak, upon my word,
In Hieroglyphics means a bird,
The very bird whose num'rous tribe is
Distinguished by the name of Ibis.
Besides, the figure with the wand,
Mark'd by a sistrum in her hand,
Appears, the moment she is seen,
An Isis, Egypt's boasted queen.
Sir, I'm as sure, as if my eye
Had seen the artist cut the die,
That these two curves, which wave, and float thus,
Are but the tendrils of the Lotus,
Which, as Herodotus has said,
Th' Egyptians always eat for bread.

He spoke, and heard, without a pause,
The rising murmur of applause;
The voice of admiration rung
On ev'ry ear from ev'ry tongue:
Astonish'd at the lucky hit
They star'd, they deify'd his wit.

But, ah! what arts by fate are tried
To vex, and humble human pride!
To pull down poets from Parnassus,
And turn grave doctors into asses!
For whilst the band their voices raise
To celebrate the Sage's praise,
And echo thro' the house convey'd
Their pæans loud to man and maid;
Tom, a pert waiter, smart, and clever,
A droit pretence who wanted never,
Curious to see what caus'd this rout,
And what the doctors were about,
Slyly stepp'd in to snuff the candles,
And ask whate'er they pleas'd to want else.
Soon as the Synod he came near
Loud dissonance assail'd his ear,
Strange mingled sounds, in pompous style,
Of Isis, Ibis, Lotus, Nile:
And soon in Roman's hand he spies
The coin, the cause of all their noise.
Quick to his side he flies amain,
And peeps, and snuffs, and peeps again.
And tho' antiques he had no skill in,
He knew a sixpence from a shilling;
And, spite of rust, or rub, cou'd trace
On humble brass Britannia's face.
Soon her fair image he descries,
And, big with laughter, and surprize,
He burst—“And is this group of learning
So short of sense, and plain discerning,
That a mere halfpenny can be
To them a curiosity?
If this is your best proof of science
With wisdom Tom claims no alliance:
Content with nature's artless knowledge
He scorns alike both school and college.”

More had he said—but, lo! around
A storm in ev'ry face he found:
On Roman's brow black thunders hung,
And whirlwinds rush'd from Swinton's tongue;
Thynne lightning flash'd from ev'ry pore,
And reason's voice was heard no more.

The tempest ey'd, Tom speeds his flight,
And, sneering, bids 'em all good night:
Convinc'd that pedantry's allies
May be too learned to be wise.