The growth of meadows, and the pride of fields,
The food of armies, and support of wars,
Refuse of swords, and gleanings of a fight,
Lessen his numbers, and contract his host.
Where'er his friends retire, or foes succeed,
Cover'd with tempests, and in oceans drown'd.

Of all which the perfection is

m

n

THE TAUTOLOGY.

Break thro' the billows, and divide the main,
In smoother numbers, and

in softer verse.

Divide-and part-the sever'd world—in two. With ten thousand others equally musical, and plentifully flowing through most of our celebrated modern poems.

CHAP. XII.

OF EXPRESSION, AND THE SEVERAL SORTS OF STYLE OF THE PRESENT AGE.

THE Expression is adequate, when it is proportionably low to the profundity of the thought. It must not be always Grammatical, lest it appear pedantic and ungentlemanly; nor too clear, for fear it become vulgar; for obscurity bestows a cast of the wonderful, and throws an oracular dignity upon a piece which hath no meaning.

;

For example, sometimes use the wrong number The Sword and Pestilence at once devours, instead of

| Camp. m Tonf. Misc. 12mo. vol. 4. p. 291, 4th edit. Ibid. vol. vi, p. 121.

devour. Sometimes the wrong case; And who more fit to sooth the God than thee? instead of thou: and rather than say, Thetis saw Achilles weep, she heard

him weep.

We must be exceeding careful in two things: first, in the Choice of low Words: secondly, in the sober and orderly way of ranging them. Many of our poets are naturally blessed with this talent, insomuch that they are in the circumstance of that honest citizen, who has made Prose all his life without knowing it. Let verses run in this manner, just to be a vehicle to the words: (I take them from my last cited author, who, though otherwise by no means of our rank, seemed once in his life to have a mind to be simple.) If not, a prize I will myself decree,

r

From him, or him, or else perhaps from thee.
full of days was he;

4

Two ages past, he liv'd the third to see.

The King of forty Kings, and honour'd more
By mighty Jove than e'er was King before.

That I may know, if thou my pray'r deny,
The most depis'd of all the Gods am I.
* Then let my mother once be rul'd by me,
Though much more wise than I pretend to be.

14

Or these of the same hand:

I leave the arts of poetry and verse

To them that practise them with more success :
Of greater truths I now prepare to tell,

And so at once, dear friend and muse, farewell.

Sometimes a single Word will vulgarize a poetical idea; as where a ship set on fire owes all the spirit

• Ti. Hom. II. i.

I P. 19.

P Idem, p. II.

$ P. 34.
P. 38.
Tons. Misc. 12mo. vol. iv. p. 292, 4th edit.

VOL. V.

L

P. 17.

of the Bathos to one choice word that ends the

And his scorch'd ribs the hot contagion fry'd.

And in that description of a world in ruins :
Should the whole frame of nature round him break,
He unconcern'd would hear the mighty crack.
So also in these :

"Beast's tame and savage to the rivers brink,
Come, from the fields and wild abodes
-to drink.
Frequently two or three words will do it effectually:
"He from the clouds does the sweet liquor squeeze,
That cheers the Forest and the Garden trees.

:

It is also useful to employ Technical Terms, which estrange your style from the great and general ideas of nature and the higher your subject is, the lower should you search into mechanicks for your expression. If you describe the garment of an angel, say that his Linen was finely spun, and bleach'd on the happy plains. Call an army of angels, Angelic Cuirassiers; and, if you have occasion to mention a number of misfortunes, style them

C

Fresh Troops of Pains, and regimented Woes.

STYLE is divided by the rhetoricians into the Proper and Figured. Of the Figured we have already treated, and the Proper is what our authors have nothing to do with. Of Styles we shall mention only the principal which owe to the moderns either their chief improvement, or entire invention.

I. THE FLORID STYLE,

than which none is more proper to the Bathos, as flowers, which are the lowest of vegetables, are most

* Pr. Arthur, p. 151. z Job, 263.

Ibid. p. 339.

a Id. Job, 264.

y Tons. Misc. vol. vi. p. 119. Prince Arthur, p. 19.

d Job, p. 86.

gaudy, and do many times grow in great plenty at the bottoms of Ponds and Ditches.

A fine writer in this kind presents you with the following pofie:

e

The groves appear all drest with wreaths of flowers, And from their leaves drop aromatic showers, Whose fragrant heads in mystic twines above, Exchange their sweets, and mix'd with thousand kisses,

As if the willing branches strove

To beautify and shade the

grove,

(which indeed most branches do.) But this is still excelled by our laureat :

f

Branches in branches twin'd compose the grove,
And shoot and spread, and blossom into love.
The trembling palms their mutual vows repeat,
And bending poplars bending poplars meet.
The distant plantanes seem to press more nigh,
And to the sighing alders, alders sigh.

Hear also our Homer:

* His Robe of State is form'd of light refin'd,
An endless Train of lustre spreads behind.
His throne's of bright compacted Glory made,
With Pearl celestial, and with Gems inlaid :
Whence Floods of joy, and Seas of Splendor flow,
On all th' angelic gazing throng below.

2. THE PERT STYLE.

This does in a peculiar manner become the low in wit, as a pert air does the low in stature. Mr. Thomas Brown, the author of the London Spy, and all the Spies and Trips in general, are herein to be diligently studied in verse Mr. Cibber's Prologues.

e Behn's Poems, p.2.

Blackm. Ps. civ.

f

Guardian, 12mo. 127.

But the beauty and energy of it is never so conspicuous, as when it is employed in Modernizing and Adapting to the Taste of the Times the works of the Ancients. This we rightly phrase Doing them into English, and Making them English; two expressions of great propriety, the one denoting our Neglect of the Manner how, the other the Force and Compulsion with which it is brought about. It is by virtue of this style that Tacitus talks like a coffee-house politician, Josephus like the British Gazetteer, Tully is as short and smart as Seneca, or Mr. Asgill, Marcus Aurelius is excellent at Snipsnap, and honest Thomas à Kempis as prim and polite as any preacher at court.

3. THE ALAMODE STYLE,

which is fine by being new, and has this happiness attending it, that it is as durable and extensive as the poem itself. Take some examples of it, in the description of the sun in a mourning coach upon the death of Queen Mary:

h

See Phoebus now, as once for Phaeton,

Has mask'd his face, and put deep Mourning on;
Dark clouds his sable Chariot do surround,

And the dull Steeds stalk o'er the melancholy
round.

Of Prince Arthur's soldiers drinking:

While rich Burgundian wine, and bright Champaign,

Chase from their minds the terrors of the main. (Whence we also learn, that Burgundy and Champaign make a man on fhore despise a storm at sea.) Of the Almighty encamping his regiments : * He sunk a vast capacious deep, Where he his liquid Regiments does keep,

h Amb. Philips.
* Blackm. Pf. civ. p. 261.

i Pr. Arthur, p

16.