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symbolical and necessarily, therefore, of obscure interpre- 

 tation. 



After having provided in the original vote for a quantity 

 of the medals, ample enough to insure its preservation for 

 ages to come, the die should come into the actual possession 

 of the state or of some institution. If ownership of the die 

 is not secured to the state by implication in the purchase of 

 the medal from the artist, it should be secured by having 

 the transfer of it promised explicitly in the contract, that 

 copies may at any time be made of the medal, and disposed 

 of by sale to such as may desire them. By a late resolu- 

 tion of Congress the mint is authorised to sell medals from 

 all dies in its possession. 



The language of Addison, in the following passage, beau- 

 tifully and impressively confirms our observations : 



" We ought to look on medals, as so many monuments 

 consigned over to eternity, that may possibly last when all 

 other memorials of the same age are worn out or lost. 

 They are a kind of present that those who are actually in 

 being, make over to such as lie hid in the depths of futurity." 



[Trans, iv] 



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