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ret or the Printer's boy may often be difcerned in the compofitions made in fuch fcenes and company; and much of Mr. Curl himself has been infenfibly infufed into the works of his learned wri

ters.

The Physician, by the ftudy and inspection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the science ; and in like fort fhould our author accuftom and exercise his imagination upon the dregs of nature.

This will render his thoughts truly and fundamentally low, and carry him many fathoms beyond Mediocrity. For, certain it is (tho' fome lukewarm heads imagine they may be fafe by temporizing between the extremes) that where there is not a Triticalnefs or Mediocrity in the Thought, it can never be funk into the genuine and perfect Bathos, by the moft elaborate low Expreffion: It can, at moft, be only carefully obfcured, or metaphorically debafed. But 'tis the Thought alone that strikes, and gives the whole that spirit, which we admire and ftare at. For inftance, in that ingenious piece on a lady's drinking the Bath-waters: She drinks! She drinks! Behold the matchless dame!

To her 'tis water, but to us 'tis flame:
Thus fire is water, water fire by turns,

And the fame ftream at once both cools and burns.

What can be more eafy and unaffected than the Diction of thefe verfes ? 'Tis the Turn of Thought alone, and the Variety of Imagination, that charm and furprize us. And when the fame lady goes into the Bath, the Thought (as in justness it ought) goes ftill deeper.

+ Venus beheld her, 'midft her croud of flaves, And thought herself just risen from the waves.

* Anon.

+ Idem.

N 3

How

How much out of the way of common fenfe is this reflection of Venus, not knowing herself from the lady?

Of the fame nature is that noble mistake of a frighted ftag in a full chace, who (faith the Poet) · Hears his own feet, and thinks they found like more; And fears the hind feet will o'ertake the fore.

So aftonishing as thefe are, they yield to the following, which is Profundity itself,

* None but Himself can be his Parallel.

Unlefs it may feem borrowed from the Thought of that Mafter of a Show in Smithfield, who writ in large letters, over the picture of his elephant,

This is the greatest Elephant in the world, except Himfelf.

However our next inftance is certainly an original: Speaking of a beautiful infant,

So fair thou art, that if great Cupid be.
A child, as Poets fay, fure thou art be.
Fair Venus would mistake thee for her own,
Did not thy eyes proclaim thee not her fon.
There all the lightnings of thy Mother's fhine,
And with a fatal brightness kill in thine.

First he is Cupid, then he is not Cupid; firft Venus would mistake him, then fhe would not miflake him; next his Eyes are his Mother's, and laftly they are not his Mother's, but his own.

Another author, defcribing a Poet that shines forth amidst a circle of Critics,

Thus Phoebus thro' the Zodiac takes his way,
And amid Monsters rifes into day.

* Theobald, Double Falfhood.

What

What a peculiarity is here of invention? The Author's pencil, like the wand of Circe, turns all into monsters at a ftroke. A great Genius takes things in the lump, without ftopping at minute confiderations: In vain might the ram, the bull, the goat, the lion, the crab, the fcorpion, the fishes, all stand in his way, as mere natural animals: much more might it be pleaded that a pair of scales, an old man, and two innocent children, were no monfters: There were only the Centaur and the Maid that could be esteemed out of nature. But what of that? with a boldness peculiar to thefe daring genius's, what he found not monfters, he made fo.

CHAP. VIII.

Of the Profund, confifting in the Circumftances, and of Amplification and Periphrafe in general.

WH

HAT in a great measure diftinguishes other writers from ours, is their chufing and feparating fuch circumstances in a description as ennoble or elevate the subject.

The circumftances which are most natural are obvious, therefore not aftonishing or peculiar. But those that are far-fetched, or unexpected, or hardly compatible, will furprise prodigioufly. Thefe therefore we must principally hunt out; but above all, preferve a laudable Prolixity; presenting the whole and every fide at once of the image to view. For Choice and Distinction are not only a curb to the fpirit, and limit the defcriptive faculty, but alfo leffen the book; which is frequently of the worst confequence of all to our author. ‡ N 4 When

When Job fays in fhort, " He washed his feet "in butter," (a circumstance fome Poets would have foftened, or paft over) now hear how this butter is spread out by the great Genius.

* With teats diftended with their milky store, Such num'rous lowing herds, before my door, Their painful burden to unload did meet,

That we with butter might have wash'd our feet.

How cautious! and particular! He had (fays our author) fo many herds, which herds thriv'd fo well, and thriving fo well gave fo much milk, and that milk produced so much butter, that, if he did not, he might have wash'd his feet in it.

The enfuing description of Hell is no lefs remarkable in the circumftances.

+ In flaming heaps the raging ocean rolls,
Whofe livid waves involve defpairing fouls;
The liquid burnings dreadful colours fhew,
Some deeply red and others faintly blue.

Could the most minute Dutch-painters have been more exact? How inimitably circumftantial is this alfo of a war-horse !

His eye-balls burn, he wounds the fmoaking plain,
And knots of scarlet ribbond deck his mane.
Of certain Cudgel-players :

$ They brandifh high in air their threatning faves,
Their bands a woven guard of ozier faves.
In which they fix their hazle weapon's end.

Who would not think the Poet had past his whole life at Wakes in fuch laudable diverfions?

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fince he teaches us how to hold, nay how to make a Cudgel!

Periphrafe is another great aid to Prolixity; being a diffused circumlocutory manner of expreffing a known idea, which fhould be fo myfteriously couch'd, as to give the reader the pleasure of guessing what it is that the author can poffibly mean, and a strange furprize when he finds it.

The Poet I laft mentioned is incomparable in this figure.

*A waving fea of heads was round me spread,

And fill fresh ftreams the gazing deluge fed.

Here is a waving fea of heads, which by a fresh ftream of heads, grows to be a gazing deluge of heads. You come at last to find, it means a great crowd.

How pretty and how genteel is the following? + Nature's Confe&ioner,

Whofe fuckets are moist alchemy :
The ftill of his refining mold
Minting the garden into gold.

What is this but a Bee gathering honey?

Little Syren of the stage,

Empty warbler, breathing lyre,
Wanton gale of fond defire,

Tuneful mischief, vocal spell.

Who would think, this was only a poor gentlewoman that fung finely?

We may define Amplification to be making the moft of a Thought; it is the Spinning-wheel of the Bathos, which draws out and fpreads it in the

* Job, p. 78.

+ Cleveland.

A. Philips to Cuzzona.

fineft

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