For I in perfon will my people head ; Will on his march in majefty appear, Under the article of the Confounding, we rank 1. The MIXTURE OF FIGUREs, which raises so many images, as to give you no image at all. But its principal beauty is when it gives an idea juft oppofite to what it seemed meant to defcribe. Thus an ingenious artist painting the Spring, talks of a Snow of Blossoms, and thereby raises an unexpected picture of Winter. Of this fort is the following: The gaping clouds pour lakes of fulphur down, Whofe livid flashes fickning funbeams drown. What a noble Confufion? clouds, lakes, brimstone, flames, fun-beams, gaping, pouring, fickning, drowning! all in two lines. 2. The JARGON. Thy head shall rife, tho' buried in the duft, And midft the clouds his glittering turrets thrust. Quere, 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 fand. P Pr. Arthur, p. 37. P. 157. Qure, Where thefe Dimetians stood? and of what fize they were? Add alfo to the Jargon fuch as the following. t Deflruction's empire fall no longer last, Here Niobe, fed mother makes her moan, But for Variegation, nothing is more useful than 3. The PARANOMASIA, or PUN, where a Word, like the tongue of a jackdaw, fpeaks twice as much by being fplit: As this of Mr. Dennis", Bullets that wound, like Parthians, as they fly; or this excellent one of Mr. Welfted Behold the Virgin lye X Naked, and only cover'd by the Sky. To which thou may'il add, > To fee her beauties no man needs to ficop, 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 3 Job, p. 8o. W t T. Cook, poems, X. Poems 1693, p. 13. Welfted, Poems, Acon and Lavin. made herself appear out of fize, by hiding a young princess under her cloaths. ▾ While the kind nymph changing her faultlefs fhape Becomes unhandfome, handfomely to fcape. On the Maids of Honour in mourning: Sadly they charm, and difmally they pleafe. Let in the object and let out the light. The Fairies and their Queen In mantles blue came tripping o'er the green. 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 clouding it at the fame time: His Thought will appear in a true mift, and very unlike what is in nature. It must always be remember'd that Dark ✓ Waller. Lee, Alex. z Steel on Queen Mary. a Quarles. Phil. Paft. Black. Job, p. 176. nefs 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 wondrous grim, Of a Lady at Dinner. The filver whiteness that adorns thy neck, f 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 flors the sprawling maftives fly, Rebold a feene of mifery and woe! Here Argus foon might weep himself quite blind, • Vet. Aut. f Theob. Double Falfhood. • Blackm. h Anon. And that modest request of two absent lovers : Ye Gods! annihilate but Space and Time, 2. The PERIPHRASIS, which the Moderns call the Circumbendibus, whereof we have given examples in the ninth chapter, and shall again in the twelfth. To the fame class of the Magnifying may be referred the following, which are so 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 so, 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, On a Warrior. ! And thou Dalbouffy the great God of War, i Anon. Wall. ! Anon. |