3

FELICY TI
AVG

2

MAX

TR

P 3

The trembling dotard to the deck he drew,
And hoisted up, and overboard he threw :
This done, he seized the helm-

MR. DRYDEN.

I have mentioned these two last passages of Virgil, because I think we cannot have so right an idea of the pilot's misfortune in each of them, without observing the situation of his post, as appears in ancient coins. The figure you see on the other end of the ship is a Triton, a man in his upper parts, and a fish below, with a trumpet in his mouth. Virgil describes him in the same manner on one of Æneas's ships. It was probably a common figure on their ancient vessels, for we meet with it too in Silius Italicus.

Hunc vehit immanis Triton, et cærula conchâ

Exterrens freta: cui laterum tenus hispida nanti
Frons hominem præfert, in pristim desinit alvus;
Spumea semifero sub pectore murmurat unda. VIR. ÆN. lib. x.
The Triton bears him, he, whose trumpet's sound
Old ocean's waves from shore to shore rebound.
A hairy man above the waist he shows,
A porpoise tail down from his belly grows,
The billows murmur, which his breast oppose.

Ducitur et Libyæ puppis signata figuram
Et Triton captivus.

LORD LAUDErdale.

SIL. IT. lib. xiv.

I am apt to think, says Eugenius, from certain passages of the poets, that several ships made choice of some god or other for their guardians, as among the Roman Catholics every vessel is recommended to the patronage of some particular saint. To give you an instance of two or three.

Est mihi sitque precor flava tutela Minervæ
Navis-

OV. DE TRIS. lib. i. El. 10.

Numen erat celsæ puppis vicina Dione.

Hammon numen erat Libycæ carinæ,

SIL. IT. lib. xiv.

Cornigerâque sedens spectabat cærula fronte. Ibid.

The poop great Ammon, Libya's god, displayed,
Whose horned front the nether flood surveyed.

The figure of the deity was very large, as I have seen it on other medals, as well as this you have shown us, and stood on one end of the vessel that it patronized. This may give us an image of a very beautiful circumstance that we meet with in a couple of wrecks described by Silius Italicus and Persius.

Subito cum pondere victus
Insiliente mari submergitur alveus undis.
Scuta virum cristæque, et inerti spicula ferro
Tutelæque deûm fluitant.

Sunk by a weight so dreadful, down she goes,
And o'er her head the broken billows close:

SIL. IT. lib. xiv.

Bright shields and crests float round the whirling floods,
And useless spears confused with tutelary gods.

-trabe ruptâ Bruttia saxa

Prendit amicus inops, remque omnem surdaque vota
Condidit: Iönio jacet ipse in littore, et unà
Ingentes de puppe Dei, jamque obvia mergis
Costa ratis laceræ.

My friend is shipwrecked on the Bruttian strand,
His riches in the Ionian main are lost;

And he himself stands shivering on the coast :
Where, destitute of help, forlorn and bare,
He wearies the deaf gods with fruitless prayer.
Their images, the relics of the wreck,
Torn from their naked poop, are tided back
By the wild waves; and, rudely thrown ashore,
Lie impotent, nor can themselves restore.
The vessel sticks, and shows her opened side,

PERS. SAT. vi.

And on her shattered mast the mews in triumph ride.

MR. DRYDEN.

You will think, perhaps, I carry my conjectures too far, if I tell you that I fancy they are these kind of gods that Horace mentions in his allegorical vessel, which was so broken and shattered to pieces; for I am apt to think that integra relates to the gods as well as the lintea.

Non tibi sunt integra lintea,
Non dii, quos iterum pressa voces malo.
Thy stern is gone, thy gods are lost,

HOR. Od. 14, lib. i.

MR. CREECH.

And thou hast none to hear thy cry, When thou on dangerous shelves art tost, When billows rage, and winds are high. Since we are engaged so far in the Roman shipping, says Philander, I'll here show you a medal' that has on its reverse a rostrum with three teeth to it; whence Silius's trifidum rostrum and Virgil's rostrisque tridentibus, which in some editions is stridentibus, the editor choosing rather to make a false quantity than to insert a word that he did not know the meaning of. Flaccus gives us a rostrum of the same make.

1 Fig. 2.

Volat immissis cava pinus habenis

Infinditque salum, et spumas vomit ære tridenti.

VAL. FLAC. ARGON. lib. i.

A ship-carpenter of old Rome, says Cynthio, could not have talked more judiciously. I am afraid, if we let you alone, you will find out every plank and rope about the vessel, among the Latin poets. Let us now, if you please, go to

the next medal.

The next, says Philander, is a pair of scales, which we meet with on several old coins. They are commonly interpreted as an emblem of the emperor's justice. But why may not we suppose that they allude sometimes to the Balance in the heavens, which was the reigning constellation of Rome and Italy? Whether it be so or not, they are capable, methinks, of receiving a nobler interpretation than what is commonly put on them, if we suppose the thought of the reverse to be the same as that in Manilius.

Hesperiam sua Libra tenet, quâ condita Roma
Et propriis frænat pendentem nutibus orbem,
Orbis et Imperium retinet, discrimina rerum
Lancibus, et positas gentes tollitque premitque :
Qua genitus cum fratre Remus hanc condidit urbem.

MANIL. lib. iv.

MR. CREECH.

The Scales rule Italy, where Rome commands, And spreads its empire wide to foreign lands: They hang upon her nod, their fates are weighed By her, and laws are sent to be obeyed: And as her powerful favour turns the poise, How low some nations sink and others rise; Thus guide the scales, and then, to fix our doom, They gave us Cæsar, founder of our Rome. The thunder-bolt is a reverse of Augustus.3 We see it used by the greatest poet of the same age to express a terrible and irresistible force in battle, which is probably the meaning of it on this medal, for, in another place, the same poet applies the same metaphor to Augustus's person.

Scipiadas

VIRG. EN. lib. vi.

The Scipios' worth, those thunderbolts of war? Mr. Dryden.

-duo fulmina belli

Who can declare