ing his mind to the lowest objects; to which it may be added, that Vulgar Converfation will greatly contribute. There is no question but the Garret or the Printer's boy may often be difcerned in the compofitions made in fuch fcenes and comand much of Mr. Curl himself has been infenfibly infufed into the works of his learned.

pany;

writers.

The Phyfician, by the ftudy and inspection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the science; and in like fort should our author accuftom and exercife 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 most claborate low Expreffion. It can, at moft, be only carefully obscured, or metaphorically debafed. But 'tis the Thought alone that strikes, and gives the whole that spirit, which we admire and ftare at. For instance, 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 these verses? "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 herfelf just rifen from the waves.

How much out of the way of common sense 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 these are, they yield to the following, which is Profundity itself,

ก

None but Himfelf can be his Parallel.

Unless it may feem borrowed from the Thought of that Master 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.

Idem.

n

Theobald, Double Falfhood,

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 he.
Fair Venus would mistake thee for her own,
Didnot thy eyes proclaim thee not her fon.
There all the lightnings of thy Mother's shine,
And with a fatal brightness kill in thine.

First he is Cupid, then he is not Cupid; first Venus would mistake him, then she would not mistake 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 fhines forth amidst a circle of Critics,

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

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 fopping at minute conûderations: In vain might the ram, the bull, the goat, the lion, the crab, the scorpion, the fishes, all ftand in his way, as mere natural animals: much more might it be pleaded that a pair of fcales, an old man, and two innocent children, were no monsters: There were only the Centaur and the Maid that could be efteemed out of naBut what of that? with a boldness peculiar

ture.

2

to thefe daring genius's, what he found not monfters, he made fo.

Of the Profund, consisting in the Circumstances, and of Amplification and Periphrafe in general.

W

HAT in a great measure diftinguishes other writers from ours, is their chufing and separating such circumftances in a description as ennoble or elevate the fubject.

The circumstances which are moft natural are cbvious, therefore not aftonishing or peculiar. But thofe that are far-fetched, or unexpected, or hardly compatible, will furprise prodigiously. These therefore we must principally hunt out; but above all, preferve a laudable Prolixity; prefenting the whole and every fide at once of the image to view. For Choice and Diftinction 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.

When Job fays in fhort, "He washed his feet "in butter," (a circumftance fome Poets would

have foftened, or past over) now hear how this butter is fpread 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 fo much butter, that, if he did not, he might have wath'd his feet in it.

The enfuing defcription 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 moft minute Dutch-painters have been more exact? How inimitably circumftantial is this alfo of a war-horfe!

His eye-balls burn, he wounds the fmoaking plain, And knots of fcarlet ribbond deck his mane.

Of certain Cudgel-players:

They brandifh high in air their threatning flaves, Their hands a woven guard of ozier faves.

In which they fix their hazle weapon's end.