As soon as an emperor had done any thing remarkable, it was immediately stamped on a coin, and became current through his whole dominions. It was a pretty contrivance, says Cynthio, to spread abroad the virtues of an emperor, and make his actions circulate. A fresh coin was a kind of a gazette, that published the latest news of the empire.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Friday, July 28, 2017
A Kind of a Gazette
Joseph Addison (1672-1719), Dialogues on Medals, III: