Or with wise ken judiciously define
When Pius marks the honorary coin
Of Caracalla, or of Antonine.'[43]
The poem from which these lines are taken—An Epistle from Florence. To Thomas Ashton, Esq., Tutor to the Earl of Plimouth—extends to some four hundred lines, and exhibits another side of Walpole's activity in Italy. 'You have seen'—says Gray to West in July, 1740—'an Epistle to Mr. Ashton, that seems to me full of spirit and thought, and a good deal of poetic fire.' Writing to him ten years later, Gray seems still to have retained his first impression. 'Satire'—he says—'will be heard, for all the audience are by nature her friends; especially when she appears in the spirit of Dryden, with his strength, and often with his versification, such as you have caught in those lines on the Royal Unction, on the Papal dominion, and Convents of both Sexes; on Henry VIII. and Charles II., for these are to me the shining parts of your Epistle. There are many lines I could wish corrected, and some blotted out, but beauties enough to atone for a thousand worse faults than these.'[44] Walpole has never been ranked among the poets; but Gray's praise, in which Middleton and others concurred, justifies a further quotation. This is the passage on the Royal Unction and the Papal Dominion:—
'When at the altar a new monarch kneels,
What conjur'd awe upon the people steals!
The chosen He adores the precious oil,
Meekly receives the solemn charm, and while
The priest some blessed nothings mutters o'er,
Sucks in the sacred grease at every pore: