am afraid you will never be able, with all your medallic eloquence, to perfuade Eugenius and myself that it is better to have a pocket full of Otho's and Gordians than of Jacobus's or Louis-d'ors. This however we hall be judges of, when you have let us know the feveral uses of old coins.

The first and most obvious one, fays Philander, is the fhewing us the faces of all the great perfons of antiquity. A cabinet of medals is a collection of pictures in miniature. Juvenal calls them very humorously,

Concifum argentum in titulos, faciefque minutas.

Sat. 5.

You here fee the Alexanders, Cæfars, Pompeys, Trajans, and the whole catalogue of heroes, who have many of them fo diftinguished themselves from the rest of mankind that we almost look upon them as another fpecies. It is an agreeable amusement to compare in our own thoughts the face of a great man with the character that authors have given us of him, and to try if we can find out in his looks and features either the haughty, cruel, or merciful temper that discovers itself in the history of his actions. We find too on medals the reprefentations of Ladies that have given occafion to whole volumes on the account

only

only of a face. We have here the pleasure to examine their looks and dreffes, and to furvey at leisure thofe beauties that have sometimes been the happiness or mifery of whole kingdoms: Nor do you only meet the faces of fuch as are famous in hiftory, but of feveral whofe names are not to be found any where except on medals. Some of the Emperors, for example, have had wives, and fome of them children, that no authors have mentioned. We are therefore obliged to the study of coins for having made new discoveries to the learned, and given them information of fuch perfons as are to be met with on no other kind of records. You must give me leave, fays Cynthio, to reject this last use of medals. I do not think it worth while to trouble myself with a perfon's name or face that receives all his reputation from the mint, and would never have been known in the world had there not been fuch things as medals. A man's memory finds fufficient employment on fuch as have really signalized themselves by their great actions, without charging itself with the names of an infignificant people whose whole history is written on the edges of an old coin.

If you are only for fuch perfons as have made a noise in the world, fays Philander, you have on medals a long lift of heathen deities, distinguished from each other by

B 4

their

their proper titles and ornaments. You fee the copies of feveral ftatues that have had the politeft nations of the world fall down before them. You have here too feveral perfons of a more thin and fhadowy nature, as hope, conftancy, fidelity, abundance, honour, virtue, eternity, juftice, moderation, happiness, and in short a whole creation of the like imaginary fubftances. To these you may add the genies of nations, provinces, cities, high-ways, and the like allegorical beings. In devices of this nature one fees a pretty poetical invention, and may often find as much thought on the reverse of a medal as in a canto of Spenfer. Not to interrupt you, fays Eugenius, I fancy it is this ufe of medals that has recommended them to feveral history-painters, who perhaps without this affiftance would have found it very difficult to have invented fuch an airy fpecies of beings, when they are obliged to put a moral virtue into colours, or to find out a proper dress for a paffion. It is doubtless for this reafon, fays Philander, that painters have not a little contributed to bring the ftudy of medals in vogue. For not to mention feveral others, Caraccio is faid to have affifted Aretine by designs that he took from the Spintria of Tiberius. Raphael had thoroughly ftudied the figures on old coins. Patin tells us that Le Brun had done the fame. And it is well known that

Rubens

Rubens had a noble collection of medals in his own poffeffion. But I must not quit this head before I tell you, that you fee on medals not only the names and perfons of Emperors, Kings, Confuls, Pro-confuls, Prætors, and the like characters of impor-tance, but of fome of the poets, and of several who had won the prizes at the Olympic games. It was a noble time, says Cynthio, when trips and Cornish hugs could make a man immortal. How many heroes would Moorfields have furnished out in the days of old? A fellow that can now only win a hat or a belt, had he lived among the Greeks, might have had his face stampt upon their coins. But thefe were the wife ancients, who had more esteem for a Milo than a Homer, and heapt up greater honours on Pindar's jockies, than on the poet himself. But by this time I fuppofe you have drawn up all your medallic people, and indeed they make a much more formidable body than I could have imagined. You have fhewn us all conditions, fexes and ages, emperors and empreffes, men and children, gods and wreftlers. Nay you have conjured up perfons that exift no where elfe but on old coins, and have made our paffions and virtues and vices vifible. I could never have thoughtthat a cabinet of medals had been fo well peopled. But in the next place, fays Philander, as we fee on coins the different faceş

of

of perfons, we fee on them too their different habits and dreffes, according to the mode that prevailed in the feveral ages when the medals were stampt. This is another use, fays Cynthio, that in my opinion contributes rather to make a man learned than wife, and is neither capable of pleafing the understanding or imagination. I know there are feveral fupercilious critics that will treat an author with the greatest contempt imaginable, if he fancies the old Romans wore a girdle, and are amazed at a man's ignorance, who believes the Toga had any fleeves to it till the declenfion of the Roman empire. Now I would fain know the great importance of this kind of learning, and why it should not be as noble a task to write upon a bib and hanging-fleeves, as on the Bulla and Prætexta. The reafon is, that we are familiar with the names of the one, and meet with the other no where but in learned authors. An antiquary will fcorn to mention a pinner or a night-rail, a petticoat or a manteau; but will talk as gravely as a father of the church on the Vitta and Peplus, the Stola and Inftita. How would an old Roman laugh, were it poffible for him to fee the folemn differtations that have been made on these weighty subjects! To fet them in their natural light, let us fancy, if you please, that about a thousand years hence, fome profound author shall