Quare, What are the glittering turrets of a man's head?

Upon the fhore, as frequent as the fand,

To meet the Prince, the glad Dimetians fland. Quare, Where these Dimetians ftood? and of what fize they were? Add also to the Jargon fuch as the following.

+ Deftruction's empire fhall no longer laft, And Defolation lye for ever waste.

§ Here Niobe, fad mother, makes her moan, And feems converted to a stone in ftone. But for Variegation, nothing is more useful than 3. The PARANOMASIA, or PUN,

where a Word, like the tongue of a jackdaw, speaks twice as much by being split: As this of Mr. Dennis

Bullets that wound, like Parthians, as they fly; or this excellent one of Mr. Welfted +,

Behold the Virgin lye

Naked, and only cover'd by the Sky.

To which thou may'st add,

To fee her beauties no man needs to stoop,
She has the whole Horizon for her hoop.

4. The ANTITHESIS, or SEE-SAW, whereby Contraries and Oppofitions are ballanced in fuch a way, as to caufe a reader to remain fufpended between them, to his exceeding delight and recreation. Such are thefe, on a lady who made herself appear out of fize, by hiding a young princefs under her cloaths.

* 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 pleafe. 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 mantles blue came tripping o'er the green.
All nature felt a reverential fhock,
The fea flood ftill to fee the mountains rock.

CHAP. 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 clauding it at the fame time: His Thought will appear in a true mist, 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 clafs of the Magnifying may be referred the following, which are fo excellently modern, that we have yet no name for them. In defcribing a country prospect,

I'd call them mountains, but can't call them fo,
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 Dalbouffy 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 fomething low, or quite ridiculous. A furprize resembling 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 feen of Cato but his privy member. Such are these 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 stream 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 foamy 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 refifted flames and fiery store,

By winds affaulted, in wide forges roar,
And raging feas flow down of melted Ore.
Sometimes they hear long Iron Bars remov❜d,
And to and fro huge Heaps of Cynders fhov'd:
2. The VULGAR,

is alfo 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 greatest Mafter in this way: Hear how he fondles, like a meer stammerer.

Little Charm of placid mien,
Miniature of beauty's queen,

* Pr. Arthur. p. 157.

P. 41.

+ Tr. Arthur. Job,

Amb. Philips on Mifs Cuzzona.