Who would not think the Poet had past his whole life at Wakes in fuch laudable diverfions? 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 so mysteriously couch'd, as to give the reader the pleasure of guessing what it is that the author can poffibly mean, and a strange surprize when he finds it.

The Poet I last mentioned is incomparable in this figure.

* A waving fea of heads was round me spread, And fill fresh fireams the gazing deluge fed.

Here is a waving fea of heads, which by a fresh stream 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?

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• Nature's Confectioner,

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 ftage,

Empty warbler, breathing lyre,

Wanton gale of fond defire,

Tuneful mifchief, vocal spell.

Job, p. 78.

Cleveland.

A. Philips to Cuzzona.

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

We may define Amplification to be making the most of a Thought; it is the Spinning-wheel of the Bathos, which draws out and spreads it in the fineft thread. There are Amplifiers who can extend half a dozen thin thoughts over a whole Folio; but for which, the tale of many a vaft Romance, and the fubftance of many a fair volume might be reduced into the fize of a primmer.

In the book of Job are thefe words, "Haft "thou commanded the morning, and caufed the

day-fpring to know his place?" How is this extended by the moft celebrated Amplifier of our age?

Canft thou fet forth th etherial mines on high,
Which the refulgent ore of light fupply?
Is the celeftial furnace to thee known,
In which I melt the golden metal down?
Treafures, from whence I deal out light as fajt,
As all my fears and lavish funs can wafle.

The fame author hath amplified a paffage in the civth Pfalm; "He looks on the earth, and it trem❝bles. He touches the hills, and they fioke."

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The bills forget they're fix'd, and in their flight Caft off their weight, and cafe themfelves for flight: The words, with terror wing'd, cut-fy the wind, And leerce the bearvy, panting bills behind.

You here fee the hills not only trembling, but shaking off the woods from their backs, to run the fafter: After this you are prefented with a foot-race of mountains and woods, where the woods diftance the mountains, that, like corpulent purfy fellows, come puffing and panting a vaft way behind them.

CHA P. IX.

Of Imitation, and the Manner of Imitating.

TH

HAT the true authors of the Profund are to imitate diligently the examples in their own way, is not to be queftioned, and that divers have by this means attained to a depth whereunto their own weight could never have carried them, is evident by fundry instances. Who fees not that De Foe was the poetical fon of Withers, Tate of Ogilby, E. Ward of John Taylor, and E---n of Blackmore? Therefore when we fit down to write, let us bring fome great author to our mind, and afk ourselves this queftion; How would Sir Richard have faid this? Do I exprefs myself as fimply as Amb. Philips? Or flow my numbers with the quiet thoughtleffness of Mr. Welfted?

But it may seem somewhat strange to affert, that our Proficient should also read the works of those famous Poets who have excelled in the Sub

lime: Yet is not this a paradox? As Virgil is faid to have read Ennius, out of his dunghill to draw gold, fo may our author read Shakespear, Milton, and Dryden for the contrary end, to bury their gold in his own dunghill. A true Genius, when he finds any thing lofty or fhining in them, will have the skill to bring it down, take off the gloss, or quite difcharge the colour, by fome ingenious Circumftance or Periphrafe, fome addition or diminution, or by fome of thofe Figures, the use of which we shall shew in our next chapter.

The book of Job is acknowledged to be infinitely fublime, and yet has not the father of the Bathos reduced it in every page? Is there a paffage in all Virgil more painted up and laboured than the defcription of Ætna in the third Æneid ?

Horrificis juxta tonat Ætna ruinis, Interdumque atram prorumpit ad æthera nubem, Turbine fumantem piceo, et candente favilla, Attellitque globos flammarum, et fidera lambit. Interdum fcopulos avulfaque vifcera montis Erigit eructans, liquefactoque faxa fub auras Cum gemitu glomerat, fundoque exæftuat imo.

(I beg pardon of the gentle English reader, and fuch of our writers as underftand not Latin.) Lo! how this is taken down by our British Poet, by the fingle happy thought of throwing the mountain into a fit of the colic.

Ætna, and all the burning mountains, find Their kindled flores with inbred forms of wind Blown up to rage; and, roaring out, complain, As torn with inward gripes, and tort'ring pain: Lab'ring, they caft their dreadful vomit round, And with their melted bowels Spread the ground. Horace, in fearch of the Sublime, ftruck his head against the Stars ; but Empedocles, to fathom the Profund, threw himself into Etna. And who but would imagine our excellent Modern had alfo been there, from this defcription?

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Imitation is of two forts; the first is when we force to our own purposes the Thoughts of others the second confifts in copying the Imperfections, or Blemishes of celebrated authors. I have seen Play profeffedly writ in the style of Shakespear; wherein the resemblance lay in one fingle line, And fo good morrow t'ye, good mafter Lieutenant. And fundry poems in imitation of Milton, where with the utmost exactnefs, and not fo much as one exception, nevertheless was conftantly nathlefs, embroider'd was broider'd, hermits were eremites, difdain'd was 'fdain'd, fhady umbrageous, enterprize emprize, pagan paynim, pinnions pennons, fweet dulcet, orchards orchats, bridge-work pontifical; nay, her was hir, and their was thir thro' the whole poem. And in very deed, there is no other way by which the true modern poet could read, to any Sublimi feriam fidera vertice.

Pr.. Arthur, p. 75. VOL. VI.