Ada 
fortune better, than in the moft liberal 
patronage of arts and fciences. More- 
over, Lorenzo took the pains to court 
his miftrefs in elegant fonnets, and wrote 
a great deal of poetry ; fomeon light, and 
fome-.on grave fubjects. For poetry all the 
rich citizens of the mercantile ftate of Flo- 
rence feem to have had an extraordinary 
predilection, and prizes were propofed for 
-thofe who excelled in that art. And, 
what is the moft furprifing of all, grave 
merchants, good men of the city, worth 
two or three hundred thoufand florins, 
ufed to meet about the fummum bonum.” 
‘This is Mr. Rofcoe’s account : ¥ do not 
pretend to have examined his authori- 
ties; but I can make ufe of my eyes 
and where a relation fo diametrically con- 
tradicts every thing that we fee or hear 
of in the prefent day, J can fcarcely 
help reje€ting it as fabulous. I have 
never underftood that any difputations of 
this kind made a part of the entertain- 
ment of our city feafts, or that the 
Summum bonum was fuppoted to confit in 
any thing but a pipe of excellent Ma- 
deira, or a flice of the new loan. How 
fhould we be furprized to hear, that Mr. 
Pitt and Mr. Dundas, even with the 
affimance of Dr. Prettyman, were gone 
down to Wimbicton to difcufs the dif- 
ferent fyftems of Clark, and Hutchefon, 
and Woolafton, concerning the origin of 
moral obligation ; or, if we fhould be told, 
that, in-the enteytainments at Carleton- 
houfe, thofe nodfes caenceeque dem, any of 
the company fhould undertake to eluci- 
date, afier dinner, fome knotty paflage 
of an ancient Greek author. Some Ro- 
man cuftoms, preparatory to the. better 
enjoyment of a plentiful entertainment, 
have, indeed, been adopted, we are 
told, among the fcientific improvements 
of modern Epicurifm ; but I have never 
underftcod, that at any fafhionable din- 
ner, the company have indulged them- 
felves in hearing a page or two of Epic- 
tetus read to them along with the de- 
fert. I have not even heard that at any 
of our noblemen’s tables, the chaplain 
has been defired to read a chapter or two 
of Paley’s Evidences, or Bifhop Watfon’s 
Apology for Chriftianity, for the edifi- 
cation of the illuftrious company ; though 
it might fometimes be as feafonable there; 
as among that lower clafs, whom their 
fuperiors are fo kindly and fo difinte- 
reftedly folicitous, at the prefent juncture, 
to preferve from the fpreading poifon of 
infidelity. 
As to poetry, 1 do not deny that we 
Mr. Rofcse’s Lorenzo de Medicis 
{July 
poffefs men of talents in that walk, but, 
I believe, with the exception of the 
Laureat, none of them expeét any pub- 
lic honours on that account ; and you can 
hardly put them more out of counte- 
nance than to allude to their produétions 
in the intercourfes of fociety. In the 
city, we are not without one who is, 
like Lorenzo, both a banker and a poet; 
but I am confident, that gentleman un- 
erftands the tone of fafhionable man- 
ners too well, to think of walking into a 
route with his hair crowned with a gar- 
land of bay-leaves, inftead of being 
{cented with marefchal powder; and 
though we have heard of many rafiles 
and races at our fummer watering places, 
we haye never feen an article in any of 
the papers, that, on fuch a day, two 
poets contended in alternate verfe in 
the pavillion at Brighton, for a golden 
cup fer with jewels, given by a certain 
illufirious perfonage. Lorenzo, Mr. 
Rofcoe fays, was the glafs of fafbion. It 
muft be confeffled, our modern glaffes of 
fafhion refieét very different images—In 
fétes, d&jeunés, galas, &c. we may, per- 
haps, rival the magnificence of Flo- 
rence, though I cannot fay much for their 
being conduéted with the fame claifical 
tafte; and we might find even very 
high examples of colleétors of gems and 
pictures, and rarities of all kinds; but 
here is the wonderful difference: Lo- 
renzo’s colle€tion, we are told, were all 
for the pudlic; his libraries were for the 
public; his paintings for the public, to 
form a fchool for painting; his urns, 
cameos, and intaglios, all for the public. 
Not locked up in little baby-houfes of 
curiofities, to gratify with more elegant 
toys the liftlefs hours of felfifh wealth, 
or folitary grandeur, but open to the ar- 
tifts he patronized, the fcholars he culti- 
vated, the fellow citizens he lived with; 
who, toincreafe the wonder, were moft 
of them in debt to him, and not he, as 
we can find, to any of them. Now, fir, 
I muft again afk, can this hiftory of 
Mr. Rofcoe’s be called a credible one ? 
If we can fuppofe there is any truth in 
the account of Lorenzo’s fpending his 
time and fortune in a manner fo totally 
different from the heads of the moft illuf- 
trious and princely houfes which we have 
feen or heard of, I can only impute it 
to his plebeian origin, which was too 
recent to admit that extreme polith of 
fafhion, that is invariably found to be 
the confequence of many generations of 
wealth and power. The ftreara of noble 
. ‘blood, . 

