* While the kind nymph changing her faultless shape Becomes unhandfome, handfomely to fcape.

On the Maids of Honour in mourning, + Sadly they charm, and difmally they please. His eyes fo bright

‡ Let in the object and let out the light.
$ The Gods look pale to fee us look fo red.
The || Fairies and their Queen

In manties blue came tripping o'er the green.
All nature felt a reverential fhock,
The fea flood fill to fee the mountains rock.

CHA P. XI.

The Figures continued: Of the Magnifying and Diminishing Figures.

A

Genuine Writer of the Profund will take

care never to magnify any object without cluding it at the fame time: His Thought will appear in a true mift, and very unlike what is in nature. It must always be remembered that Darknefs is an effential quality of the Profund, or, if there chance to be a glimmering, it must be as Milton expreffes it,

No light, but rather darkness visible. The chief Figure of this fort is,

1. The HYPERBOLE, or Impoffible.

For inftance, of a Lion;

He roar'd fo loud, and look'd fo won'rous grim,
His very fhadow durft not follow him.
Of a Lady at Dinner.

The filver whiteness that adorns thy neck,
Sullies the plate, and makes the napkin black.
Of the fame.

Th' + obfcureness of her birth

Cannot eclipfe the luftre of her eyes,
Which make her all one light.

Of a Bull-baiting.

Up to the stars the sprawling maftives fly,
And add new monsters to the frighted sky.
Of a Scene of Misery.

S Behold a fcene of mifery and woe!

Here Argus foon might weep himfe'f quite blind,
Ev'n tho' he had Briareus hundred hands
To wipe thofe hundred eyes.

And that modest request of two absent lovers:
Ye Gods! annihilate but Space and Time,
And make two lovers happy.

2. The PERIPHRASIS, which the Moderns call. the Circumbendibus, whereof we have given examples in the ninth chapter, and fhall again in the twelfth.

To the fame class of the Magnifying may be referred the following, which are fo excellently mo dern, that we have yet no name for them. In defcribing a country profpect,

I'd call them mountains, but can't call them so,
For fear to wrong them with a name too low;

Vet. Aut. + Blackm.

+ Theob. Double Falfhood.

§ Anon.

Anon.

While the fair vales beneath fo humbly lie,
That even humble feems a term too high.

III. The third Clafs remains, of the Diminishing Figures: And 1. the ANTICLIMAX, where the second line drops quite fhort of the first, than which nothing creates greater furprize.

On the extent of the British Arms.
*Under the Tropicks is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath receiv'd our Yoke.
On a Warrior

+ And thou Dalhouffy the great God of War,
Lieutenant Colonel to the Earl of Mar.

On the Valour of the English.
Nor Art nor Nature has the force
To top its fteddy courfe,

Nor Alps nor Pyrenæens keep it out,
Nor fortify'd Redoubt.

At other times this figure operates in a larger extent; and when the gentle reader is in expectation of fome great image, he either finds it furprizingly imperfect, or is prefented with something low, or quite ridiculous. A furprize refembling that of a curious perfon in a cabinet of Antique Statues, who beholds on the pedestal the names of Homer, or Cato; but looking up, finds Homer without a head, and nothing to be seen of Cato but his privy member. Such are thefe lines of a Leviathan at fea,

§ His motion works, and beats the oozy mud, And with its flime incorporates the flood, 'Till all the encumber'd, thick, fermenting ftream Does like one Pot of boiling Ointment seem.

* Wall.
Blackm. Job, p. 197.

† Anon.

Denn. on Namur.

03

Where'er

Where'er be fwims, he leaves along the lake Such frothy furrows, fuch a feamy track, That all the waters of the deep appear Hoary—with age, or grey with fudden fear, But perhaps even thefe are excelled by the enfuing.

}

*Now the refited flames and fiery store, By winds affaulted, in wide forges roar, And raging feas flow down of melted Ore. Sometimes they bear long Iron Bars remov'd, And to and fro huge Heaps of Cynders fhov'd: 2. The VULGAR,

is also a Species of the Diminishing: By this a fpear flying into the air is compared to a boy whistling as he goes on an errand.

The mighty Stuffa threw a maffy fpear,

Which, with its Errand pleas'd,fung thro' the air, A Man raging with grief to a Mastiff Dog:

I cannot fifle this gigantic woe,

Nor on my raging grief a muzzle throw.

And Clouds big with water to a woman in great ncceffity:

Diftended with the Waters in 'em pent,

The clouds hang deep in air, but hang unrent. 3. The INFANTINE.

This is when a Poet grows fo very fimple, as to think and talk like a child. I fhall take my examples from the greateft Mafter in this way: Hear how he fondles, like a meer ftammerer.

Little Charm of placid mien,

Miniature of beauty's queen,

Hither, British mufe of mine,
Hither, all ye Græcian Nine,
With the lovely Graces Three,
And your pretty Nurseling fee.

When the meadows next are feen,
Sweet enamel, white and green.
When again the lambkins play,
Pretty Sportlings full of May.

Then the neck fo white and round,
(Little Neck with brillants bound.)
And thy Gentleness of mind,
(Gentle from a gentle kind) etc.
Happy thrice, and thrice agen,
Happiest he of happy men, etc.

and the reft of thofe excellent Lullabies of his compofition.

How prettily he afks the fheep to teach him to bleat?

* Teach me to grieve with bleating moan, my sheep. Hear how a babe would reafon on his nurse's death:

+ That ever he could die! Oh most unkind! To die, and leave poor Colinet behind? And yet,-Why blame I her?--

With no lefs fimplicity does he fuppofe that fhepherdeffes tear their hair and beat their breafts, at their own deaths:

Ye brighter maids, faint emblems of my fair,
With looks caft down, and with dishevel'd hair,
In bitter anguifh beat your breafts, and moan
Her death untimely, as it were your own,

Philips's Paftorals

+ Ibid.

Ibid.

4. The

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