want of this true Foundation, without which nothing can please long, if at
all: and the best Examples and Rules will but be perverted into something
burdensome or ridiculous, v.65, etc., to 92. A description of the false
Taste of Magnificence; the first grand Error of which is to imagine that
Greatness consists in the size and dimension, instead of the Proportion and
Harmony of the whole, v.97, and the second, either in joining together
Parts incoherent, or too minutely resembling, or in the Repetition of the
same too frequently, v.105, etc. A word or two of false Taste in Books, in
Music, in Painting, even in Preaching and Prayer, and lastly in
Entertainments, v.133, etc. Yet Providence is justified in giving Wealth
to be squandered in this manner, since it is dispersed to the poor and
laborious part of mankind, v.169 (recurring to what is laid down in the
first book, Ep. ii., and in the Epistle preceding this, v.159, etc.). What
are the proper objects of Magnificence, and a proper field for the Expense
of Great Men, v.177, etc., and finally, the Great and Public Works which
become a Prince, v.191 to the end.

'Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy:
Is it less strange, the prodigal should waste
His wealth, to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats;
Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats:
He buys for Topham, drawings and designs,
For Pembroke, statues, dirty gods, and coins;
Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone,
And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane.
Think we all these are for himself? no more
Than his fine wife, alas! or finer w***e.
For what has Virro painted, built, and planted?