like a libel on the nation to repeat them to you. We seldom meet with our forefathers, but they are coupled with some epithet or another to blacken them. Barbarous, cruel, and inhospitable, are the best terms they can afford us, which it would be a kind of injustice to publish, since their posterity are become so polite, good-natured, and kind to strangers. To mention, therefore, those parts only that relate to the present medal. She sits on a globe that stands in water, to denote that she is mistress of a new world, separate from that which the Romans had before conquered, by the interposition of the sea. I think we cannot doubt of this interpretation, if we consider how she has been represented by the ancient poets.

Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.

VIRG. Ecl. 1.

MR. DRYDEN.

The rest among the Britons be confined;
A race of men from all the world disjoined.
Adspice, confundit populos impervia tellus:
Conjunctum est, quod adhuc orbis, et orbis erat.
VET. POET. APUD SCALIG. CATUL.

At nunc oceanus geminos interluit orbes.

Id. DE BRITANNIA ET OPPOSITO CONTINENTE.
-nostro diducta Britannia mundo. CLAUD.
Nec stetit oceano, remisque ingressa profundum,
Vincendos alio quæsivit in orbe Britannos.

Idem.

The feet of Britannia are washed by the waves, in the same poet.

-cujus vestigia verrit

Cœrulus, oceanique æstum mentitur, amictus.

Id. DE LAUD. STIL. lib. ii.

She bears a Roman ensign in one of her hands, to confess herself a conquered province.

1

-victricia Cæsar

Signa Caledonios transvexit ad usque Britannos. SIDON. APOL. But to return to Achaia, whom we left upon her knees before the Emperor Adrian. She has a pot before her with a sprig of parsley rising out of it. I will not here trouble you with a dull story of Hercules' eating a salad of parsley for his refreshment, after his encounter with the Nemean lion. It is certain, there were in Achaia the Neamean games, and that a garland of parsley was the victor's reward. You have an account of these games in Ausonius.

1 Fig. 10.

Quattuor antiquos celebravit Achaïa Ludos,
Cœlicolûm duo sunt, et duo festa hominum.
Sacra Jovis, Phœbique, Palæmonis, Archemorique :
Serta quibus pinus, malus, oliva, apium.

AUS. DE LUSTRAL. AGON.

Greece, in four games thy martial youth were trained;

For heroes two, and two for gods ordained:

Jove bade the olive round his victor wave;
Phœbus to his an apple garland gave:

The pine, Palæmon; nor with less renown,
Archemorus conferred the parsley crown.

Archemori Nemeæa colunt funebria Theba. Id. DE LOCIS AGON.

-Alcides Nemeæ sacravit honorem.

DE AUCT. AGON. Id.

One reason why they chose parsley for a garland, was doubtless because it always preserves its verdure, as Horace opposes it to the short-lived lily.

Neu vivax apium, nec breve lilium
Let fading lilies and the rose
Their beauty and their smell disclose;
Let long-lived parsley grace the feast,
And gently cool the heated guest.

Lib. i. Od. 36.

MR. CREECH.

Juvenal mentions the crown that was made of it, and which here surrounds the head of Achaia.

-Graiæque apium meruisse coronæ.

Juv. Sat. 8.

And winning at a wake their parsley crown. MR. STEPNEY. She presents herself to the emperor in the same posture that the Germans and English still salute the imperial and royal family.

-jus imperiumque Phraates

Cæsaris accepit genibus minor.

The haughty Parthian now to Cæsar kneels.
Ille qui donat diadema fronti

Quem genu nixæ tremuere gentes.

-Non, ut inflexo genu,

Regnantem adores, petimus.

HOR. EPIST. 12, lib. i.

MR. CREECH.

SENEC. THYEST. act. iii.

Idem.

Te linguis variæ gentes, missique rogatum

Fœdera Persarum proceres cum patre sedentem,
Hac quondam vidêre domo; positâque tiarâ
Submisere genu.

CLAUD. AD HONORIUM.

Thy infant virtue various climes admired,

And various tongues to sound thy praise conspired:
Thee next the sovereign seat, the Persians viewed,
When in this regal dome for peace they sued:
Each turban low, in sign of worship, waved,
And every knee confessed the boon they craved.

Sicily appears before Adrian in the same posture.1 She has a bundle of corn in her hand, and a garland of it on her head, as she abounds in wheat, and was consecrated to Ceres. Utraque frugiferis est insula nobilis arvis: Nec plus Hesperiam longinquis messibus ullæ, Nec Romana magis complerunt horrea terræ.

DE SICILIA ET SARDINIA. Luc. lib. ii.

Sardinia too, renowned for yellow fields,
With Sicily her bounteous tribute yields;
No lands a glebe of richer tillage boast,
Nor waft more plenty to the Roman coast.
Terra tribus scopulis vastum procurrit in æquor
Trinacris, a positu nomen adepta loci,
Grata domus Cereri, multas ibi possidet urbes :
In quibus est culto fertilis Henna solo.

To Ceres dear, the fruitful land is famed

MR. ROWE.

OV. DE FAST. lib. iv.

For three tall capes, and thence Trinacria named:
There Henna well rewards the tiller's toil,

The fairest champion of the fairest isle.

We find Judea on several coins of Vespasian and Titus, in a posture that denotes sorrow and captivity. The first figure of her is drawn to the life in a picture that Seneca has given us of the Trojan matrons bewailing their captivity.