4. The INANITY, or NOTHINGNESS. Of this the fame author furnishes us with moft beautiful inftances:

* Ab filly I, more filly than my sheep,

(Which on the flow'ry plain I once did keep.) + To the grave Senate fhe could counsel give, (Which with aftonishment they did receive.) He whom loud cannon could not terrify, Falls (from the grandeur of his Majefty.) Happy, merry as a king,

Sipping dew, you sip, and fing.

The Noife returning with returning Light, What did it?

Difpers'd the Silence, and dispell'd the Night, You eafily perceive the Nothingness of every second Verfe.

The glories of proud London to furvey,

The Sun himself fhall rife-by break of day.

5. The EXPLETIVE,

admirably exemplified in the Epithets of many authors,

Th' umbrageous fhadow, and the verdant green,
The running current, and odorous fragrance,
Chear my lone folitude with joyous gladness,
Or in pretty drawling words like these,

All men his tomb, a'l men his fons adore,
And his fons fans, till there fhall be no more.

The rifing fun our grief did fee,
The fetting fun did fee the fame,
While wretched we remembred thee,
O Sion, Sion, lovely name.

6. The MACROLOGY and PLEONASM

are as generally coupled, as a lean rabbit with a fat one; nor is it a wonder, the fuperfluity of words and vacuity of fenfe, being just the fame thing. I am pleased to see one of our greatest adverfaries employ this figure.

+ The growth of meadows, and the pride of fields, The food of armies and fupport of wars. Refufe of fwords, and gleanings of a fight, Leffen his numbers, and contract his host. Where'er his friends retire, or foes fucceed, Cover'd with tempefts, and in oceans drown'd. Of all which the Perfection is

The TAUTOLOGY.

Break thro' the billows, and-divide the main In fmoother numbers, and—in fofter verse. Divide-and part-the fever'd World - in two. With ten thousand others equally mufical, and plentifully flowing thro' most of our celebrated modern Poems.

+ Camp.

t Tonf. Mifc. 120 § Ibid. vol. vi. P.

121.

* Ibid. vol, iv. p. 291. 4th Edit.

С НА Р.

CHAP. XII.

Of Expreffion, and the feveral Sorts of Style of the prefent Age.

HE Expreffion is adequate, when it is proportionably low to the Profundity of the Thought. It must not be always Grammatical, left it appear pedantic and ungentlemanly; nor too clear for fear it becomes vulgar; for obscurity beftows a caft of the wonderful, and throws an oracular dignity upon a piece which hath no meaning.

For example, fometimes ufe the wrong Number; The Sword and Peftilence at once devours, inftead of devour. * Sometimes the wrong Cafe; And who more fit to footh the God than thee? inftead of thou And rather than fay, Thetis faw Achilles weep, he heard him weep.

We must be exceeding careful in two things: firft, in the Choice of low Words: fecondly, in the feber and orderly way of ranging them. Many of our poets are naturally blefs'd with this talent, infomuch that they are in the circumftance of that honeft Citizen, who had made Profe all his life without knowing it. Let verfes run in this manner, juft to be a vehicle to the words: (I take them from my last cited author, who, tho' otherwife by no means of our rank, feemed once in his life to have a mind to be fimple.)

† If not, a prize I will myself decree,
From him, or him, or elfe perhaps from the.

full of Days was he;

Two ages paft, he liv'd the third to fee.

*Ti. Hom, Il. i.

Idem, p. 17.

+ Ti. Hom. II. i. p. 11.

§ The

* The king of forty kings, and bonour'd more
By mighty fove than e'er was king before.

†That I may know, if thou my pray'r deny,
The most defpis'd of all the Gods am I.

‡ Then let

be rul'd by me,

Tho' much more wife than I pretend to be.

Or these of the fame hand.

I leave the arts of poetry and verfe

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

And fo at once, dear friend and mufe, farewel.

Sometimes a fingle Word will vulgarize a poetical idea; as where a Ship fet on fire owes all the Spirit of the Bathos to one choice word that ends

the line.

And his fcorch'd ribs the hot Contagion fry'd.
And in that description of a World in ruins,
*Should the whole frame of nature raund him break,
He unconcern'd would hear the mighty Crack.

So alfo in these.

++ Beafs tame and favage to the river's 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 fweet liquor squeeze,
That chears the Foreft and the Garden trees.

* Idem, p. 19.

+ P. 34.

§ Tonf. Mifc. 120 vol. iv. p. 292, fourth Edit.

Arthur, p. 151.

tt Job, 263.

*Tonf. Mifc. vol. vi. p. 119.

‡‡ Id, Job, 264.

It is also useful to employ Technical Terms, which eftrange your ftyle from the great and general ideas of nature and the higher your fubject is, the lower fhould you fearch into mechanicks for your expreffion. If you defcribe the garment of an angel, fay that his Linen was finely fpun, and bleached on the harpy Plains. † Call an army of angels, Angelic Cuiraffiers, and, if you have occafion to mention a number of misfortunes, ftyle them

Fresh Troops of Pains, and regimented Woes.

STYLE is divided by the Rhetoricians into the Proper and the Figured. Of the Figured we have already treated, and the Proper is what our authors have nothing to do with. Of Styles we fhall mention only the Principal which owe to the moderns either their chief Improvement, or entire Invention.

1. The FLORID Style,

than which none is more proper to the Bathos, as flowers which are the Lowest of vegetables are most Gaudy, and do many times grow in great plenty at the bottom of Ponds and Ditches.

A fine writer in this kind prefents you with the following Pofie:

The groves appear all dreft with wreaths of flowers,
And from their leaves drop aromatic showers,
Whofe fragrant heads in myftic twines above,
Exchang'd their fweets, and mix'd with thousand
kiffes,

As if the willing branches firove

To beautify and fhade the grove,

which indeed most branches do.) But this is ftill