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[Page 2]
and assistance of such persons of Classical Taste & numismatical experience as they may chuse to Consult; & from Such people alone, under the supervision of a Grave & a well judging body of men, whose opinions will be attended to be the Public, when the Loss of the superfluity of Fancy & Restrain the Flight of imagination within Proper bounds, designs a regular system of Emblems detaild Emblems proposd to be minuted into designs Capable of being Capable of pleasing the Reputation of the Country for Good Taste in Composition can alone be expected
The Romans were without doubt the most successful in the use of Numismatic Emblems of any nation of Antiquity. They recorded almost every important Transaction of the State which was juded deemed honorable to the nation, on the Reverses of their Current Coin in a language by a few Emblematical figures intelligible to perfectly understood by the persons among whom the money was Circulated & still very intelligible to us even at this Remate Period after a Lapse of 15 or 16 Centuries.
[The following paragraph is crossed through.]
and this was done by the use of a Few Emblematical Figures originally sanctiond by the Tacit Consent of the People which these in time became the Element of an hieroglyphical Language which could be capable of being read with facility & understood with certainty and of Conveying in the Small area of the reverses of a Roman denarius that which (3 if written in Letters words Letters 2 a large piece of Papyrus 1would not have been Containd in) & which if composrd of words & of Sentences would have been Liable to a thousand Silly Ludicrous & mischievous Criticisms from which hieroglyphical writing, when the Elements have been agreed upon Previously fixd & approvd, is wholly & entirely exempt
That Britain Contains as much Elegance of imagination, as much Sagacity of Judgment & as much Correctness of Taste (which is imagination Corrected by judgment) as Rome Ever did in her best days, ought not