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Hither, British muse 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,
Happieft he of happy men, etc.

and the rest 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?

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With no less 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 difhevel'd hair,
In bitter anguifh beat your breasts, and moan
Her death untimely, as it were your own,

Philips's Paftorals.

+ Ibid.

Ibid.

$0 4

4. The

4. The INANITY, or NOTHINGness. Of this the fame author furnishes us with most beautiful instances :

* Ab filly I, more filly than my sheep,

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

Sipping dew, you fip, and fing.

The Noise returning with returning Light, What did it?

| Difpers'd the Silence, and difpell'd the Night, You eafily perceive the Nothingness of every se

cond Verfe.

The glories of proud London to survey,

The Sun himself fhall rife-by break of day.

5. The EXPLETIVE,

admirably exemplified in the Epithets of many au thors,

Th' umbrageous fhadow, and the verdant green,
The running current, and odorous fragrance,
Chear my lane 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.

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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 same thing. I am pleased to fee 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 hoft. 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 verfe. 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.

*Ibid.

+ Camp.

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

t Tonf. Mifc. 120 § Ibid. vol. vi. p. 131.

СНА Р.

CHAP. XII.

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

HE Expreffion is adequate, when it is proTportionably lows 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 obfcurity beftows a caft of the wonderful, and throws an oracular dignity upon a piece which hath no meaning.

For example, fometimes use 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 else perhaps from the.

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*The king of forty kings, and bonour'd more By mighty Jove 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

my

mother once

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 verse

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.

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