of fense, being just the same thing. I am pleased to see one of our greatest adversaries employ this figure. * "The growth of meadows, and the pride of fields, "The food of armies and fupport of wars: "Refuse 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 occans drown'd.” . Of all which the Perfection is The TAUTOLOGY. + "Break thro' the billows, and-divide the main "In smoother numbers, and-in fofter verfe." I "Divide-and part-the fever'd World-in two-." With ten thousand others equally mufical, and plentifully flowing through moft of our celebrated and modern Poems. CHAP. XII. Of Expreffion, and the feveral Sorts of Style of the prefent Age. THE "HE Expression is adequate, when it is proportionably low to the Profundity of the Thought. It muft not be always Grammatical, left it appear pedantic and ungentlemanly; nor too clear, for fear it become 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 fword and peftilence at once devours, instead 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, fhe heard him weep. * Camp. Tonf. Mifc. 12mo. vol. iv. p. 291, 4th Edit. We must be exceeding careful in two things; firft, in the Choice of low Words: fecondly, in the fober and orderly way of ranging them. Many of our Poets are naturally blessed with this talent, infomuch that they are in the circumstance of that honeft Citizen, who had made Profe all his life without knowing it. Let verfes run in this manner, just to be a vehicle to the words: (I take them from my laft-cited author, who, though 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 thee."? +"full of days was he; "Two ages paft, he liv'd the third to fee." The king of forty kings, and honour'd more "By mighty Jove than e'er was king before." || "That I may know, if thou my pray'r deny, The most despis'd of all the Gods am I." § "Then let my mother once be rul'd by me, Or thefe 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, farewell." Sometimes a fingle Word will vulgarise 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 defcription of a World in ruins; * "Should the whole frame of nature round him break, "He unconcern'd would bear the mighty Crack." So alfo in these, "Beafts 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 sweet liquors squeeze, "That chears the Foreft and the Garden trees." It is also useful to employ Technical Terms, which eftrange your ftyle from the great and general ideas of nature: and the higher your subject is, the lower should 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 happy plains. army of Angels, Angelic Cuiraffiers, and, if you have oc cafion to mention a number of misfortunes, ftyle them § "Fresh Troops of Pains, and regimented Woes. Call an 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 shall 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 vagetables, are moft 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 drefs'd with wreaths of flowers, "As if the willing branches ftrove (which indeed moft branches do.) But this is ftill excelled by our Laureat, "Branches in branches twin'd compofe the grove, "And fhoot and fpread, and bloffom into love. The trembling palms their mutual vows repeat, "And bending poplars bending poplars meet. "The diftant plantanes feem to prefs more nigh, "And to the fighing alders, alders figh.' Here alfo our Homer. "His Robe of State is form'd of light refin'd, An endless Train of luftre spreads behind. "His throne's of bright compacted Glory made, "With Pearl celeftial, and with Gems inlaid: "Whence Floods of joy, and Seas of fplendor flow, "On all th' angelic gazing throng below." 2. The PERT Stylc. This does in as peculiar a manner become the low in wit, as a pert air does the low in ftature. Mr. Thomas Brown, the author of the London Spy, and all the Spies and Trips in general, are herein to be diligently ftudied: In Verfe Mr. Cibber's Prologues. But the beauty and energy of it is never fo confpicuous, as when it is employed in Modernizing and Adapting to the Behn's Poems, p. 2. Blackm. Pf civ. † Guardian, 12mo, 127. Tafte Taste of the Times the works of the Ancients. This we rightly phrase Doing them into English, and Making them English; two expreffions of great Propriety, the one denoting our Neglect of the Manner how, the other the Force and Compulfion with which it is brought about. It is by virtue of this Style that Tacitus talks like a Coffeehoufe Politician, Jofephus like the British Gazetteer, Tully is as fhort and smart as Seneca or Mr. Afgill, Marcus Aurelius is excellent at Snipfnap, and honeft Thomas à Kempis as Prim and Polite as any preacher at court. 3. The ALAMODE Style, which is fine by being new, and has this happiness attending it, that it is as durable and extenfive as the poem itself. Take fome examples of it, in the description of the Sun in a Mourning-coach upon the death of Queen Mary. *See Phoebus now, as once for Phaeton, "Has mafk'd his face, and put deep Mourning on: Of Prince Arthur's Soldiers drinking. + "While rich Burgundian wine, and bright Chamaign "Chafe from their minds the terrors of the main." (whence we also learn, that Burgundy and Champaign make a man on shore despise a storm at sea.) Of the Almighty encamping his Regiments. "He funk a vaft capacious deep, "Where he his liquid Regiments does keep, "Thither the waves file off, and make their way, "To form the mighty body of the fea; * Amb. Philips. Blackm. Pf. civ. p..261. + Pr. Arthur, p. 16. Where |