Of all which the Perfection is

The TAUTOLOGY..

"Break thro' the billows, and---divide the main In smoother numbers, and---in fofter verse. · Divide--and part--the fever'd World -in two.-With ten thousand others equally mufical, and plentifully flowing thro' moft of our celebrated modern Poems.

CHA P. XII.

Of Expression, and the feveral Sorts of Style of the prefent Age.

HE Expreffion is adequate, when it is proportionably low to the Pr Profundity of the Thought. It must not be always Grammatical, left it appear pedantic and ungentlemanly; nor too clear, for fear it become vulgar; for obfcurity bestows 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, inftead of devour. k * Sometimes the wrong Cafe;

Tonf. Mifc. 122 vol. iv. p. 291. 4th Edit. Ibid. vol. vi.
Ti. Hom. II. i.

p. 121.

VOL VI.

R

And who more fit to footh the God than thee? instead of thou: And rather than fay, Thetis faw Achilles weep, the beard him weep.

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 naturally blefs'd with this talent, infomuch that they are in the circumstance of that honest Citizen, who had made Prose all his life without knowing it. Let verfes run in this manner, juft to be a vehicle to the words: (I take them from my last cited author, who, tho' otherwife by no means of our rank, seemed once in his life to have a mind to be fimple.)

n

If not, a prize I will myself decree,

From him, or him, or elfe perhaps from thee.

ful of Days was he;

Two ages paft, he liv'd the third to fee.

The king of forty kings, and boncur'd more
By mighty Jove than e'er was king before.

That I may know, if thou my pray'r deny,
The most defpis'd of all the Gods am I.

• Then let my mother once be rul'd by me,
Tho' much more wife than I pretend to be.

1 Ti. Hom. Il i. p. 11.

Idem. p. 19.

• P. 34

m Idem. p. 17.

PP. 38.

Or thefe of the fame hand.

• I leave the arts of poetry and verfe

To them that practife them with more fuccefs: Of greater truths I now prepare to tell, And fo at once, dear friend and mufe, farewel Sometimes a single Word will vulgarife 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 bis 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 hear the mighty Crack. So alfo in thefe,

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 fweet liquor fqueeze, That chears the Foreft and the Garden trees. It is also useful to employ Technical Terms, which eftrange your style from the great and general ideas of nature and the higher your fubject is, the lower should search into mechanicks for your expreffion. If you describe the garment of an an

you

9 Tonf. Mifc. 12° vol. iv. p. 292, fourth Edit. shur, p. 151. Tonf. Mifc. vol. vi. p. 119. * Id. Job, 264.

X

gel, fay that his Linen was finely spun, and bleached on the happy Plains. y Call an army of angels, Angelic Cuiraffiers, and, if you have occafion to mention a number of misfortunes, ftyle them

2

Fresh Troops of Pains, and regimented li ̋ces.

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 vegetables, are moft Gandy, 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 dreft with wreaths of flowers,
And from their leaves drop aromatic flowers,
Whofe fragrant heads in myftic twines above,
Exchang'd their fweets, and mix'd with thoufand
kiffes,

Prince Arthur, p. 19.

a Behn's Poems, p. 2.

Ibid. p. 339. z Job, p. 86.

As if the willing branches ftrove

To beautify and shade the

grove,--

(which indeed moft branches do.) But this is ftill excelled by our Laureat,

↳ Branches in branches twin'd compose the grove,
And Shoot 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.

Hear alfo our Homer.

His Robe of State is form'd of light refin'd,
An endless Train of luftre fpreads 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 Style.

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 studied: 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 Taste of the Times the works

Guardian, 12° 127.

c Blackm. Pf. civ.