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this nation we are indebted for the best lights that have been given to the whole science in general.

I must not here forget to mention the medallic history of the popes, where there are many coins of an excellent workmanship, as I think they have none of those faults that I have spoken of in the preceding set. They are always Roman catholic in the device and in the legend, which are both of them many times taken out of the holy scriptures, and therefore not unsuitable to the character of the prince they represent. Thus when Innocent the eleventh lay under terrible apprehensions of the French king, he put out a coin, that on the reverse of it had a ship tossed on the waves to represent the church. Before, it was the figure of our Saviour walking on the waters, and St. Peter ready to sink at his feet. The inscription, if I remember, was in Latin. Help Lord, or else I perish. This puts me in mind, says Cynthio, of a pasquinade that at the same time was fixed up at Rome. Ad Galli cantum Petrus flet. But, methinks, under this head of the figures on ancient and modern coins, we might expect to hear your opinion on the difference that appears in the workmanship of each. You must know then, says Philander, that till about the end of the third century, when there was a general decay in all the arts of designing, I do not remember to have seen the head of a Roman emperor drawn with a full face. They always appear in profil, to use a French term of art, which gives us the view of a head that, in my opinion, has something in it very majestic, and at the same time suits best with the dimensions of a medal. Besides that, it shows the nose and eyebrows, with the several prominences and fallings in of the features, much more distinctly

than any other kind of figure. In the lower empire you have abundance of broad Gothic faces, like so many full moons on the side of a coin. Among the moderns, too, we have of both sorts, though the finest are made after the antique. In the next place you find the figures of many ancient coins rising up in a much more beautiful relief than those on the modern. This, too, is a beauty that fell with the grandeur of the Roman emperors, so that you see the face sinking by degrees in the several declensions of the empire, till about Constantine's time it lies almost even with the surface of the medal. After this it appears so very plain and uniform, that one would think the coiner looked on the flatness of a figure as one of the greatest beauties in sculpture. I fancy, says Eugenius, the sculptors of that age had the same relish as a Greek priest that was buying some religious pictures at Venice. Among others he was shown a noble piece of Titian. The priest, having well surveyed it, was very much scandalized at the extravagance of the relief, as he termed it. You know, says he, our religion forbids all idolatry: we admit of no images but such as are drawn on a smooth surface: the figure you have here shown me, stands so much out to the eye, that I would no sooner suffer it in my church than a statue. I could recommend your Greek priest, says Philander, to abundance of celebrated painters on this side of the Alps that would not fail to please him. We must own, however, that the figures on several of our modern medals are raised and rounded to a very great perfection. But if you compare them in this particular with the most finished among the ancients, your men of art declare universally for the latter.

Cynthio and Eugenius, though they were well pleased with Philander's discourse, were glad, however, to find it at an end: for the sun began to gather strength upon them, and had pierced the shelter of their walks in several places. Philander had no sooner done talking, but he grew sensible of the heat himself, and immediately proposed to his friends the retiring to his lodgings, and getting a thicker shade over their heads. They both of them very readily closed with the proposal, and by that means gave me an opportunity of finishing my dialogue.

THREE SETS OF MEDALS

ILLUSTRATED BY THE ANCIENT POETS, IN THE FOREGOING DIALOGUES.

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