ret or the Printer's boy may often be difcerned in the compofitions made in fuch fcenes and company; and much of Mr. Curl himself has been infenfibly infused into the works of his learned wri ters. The Phyfician, by the ftudy and inspection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the fcience ; and in like fort fhould our author accuftom and exercise 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 Triticalness or Mediocrity in the Thought, it can never be funk into the genuine and perfect Bathos, by the moft elaborate low Expreffion: It can, at most, be only carefully obfcured, or metaphorically debafed. But 'tis the Thought alone that strikes, and gives the whole that spirit, which we admire and ftare at. For inftance, 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 : And the fame ftream at once both cools and burns. What can be more easy and unaffected than the + Venus beheld her, 'midft her croud of flaves, * Anon. † Idem. IN 3 How How much out of the way of common fenfe is this reflection of Venus, not knowing herfelf 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, * None but Himself can be his Parallel. Unless it may seem 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. However our next inftance is certainly an original: Speaking of a beautiful infant, So fair thou art, that if great Cupid be First he is Cupid, then he is not Cupid; first Venus would miftake him, then fhe would not mi̟stake 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, * Theobald, Double Falfhood. What What a peculiarity is here of invention? The Author's pencil, like the wand of Circe, turns all into monsters at a stroke. A great Genius takes things in the lump, without ftopping at minute confiderations: In vain might the ram, the bull, the goat, the lion, the crab, the fcorpion, the fishes, all stand in his way, as mere natural animals: much more might it be pleaded that a pair of scales, an old man, and two innocent children, were no monsters: There were only the Centaur and the Maid that could be efteemed out of nature. But what of that? with a boldness peculiar to these daring genius's, what he found not monfters, he made fo. CHAP. VIII. Of the Profund, confifting in the Circumftances, and of Amplification and Periphrase in general. WH HAT in a great meafure diftinguishes other writers from ours, is their chufing and feparating fuch circumftances in a defcription as ennoble or elevate the fubject. The circumftances which are moft natural are obvious, therefore not aftonishing or peculiar. Eut those that are far-fetched, or unexpected, or hardly compatible, will furprife prodigioufly. Thefe 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 Distinction 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 I N 4 When Job fays in fhort, " He washed his feet. "in butter," (a circumstance fome Poets would have foftened, or paft over) now hear how this butter is fpread out by the great Genius. * With teats diftended with their milky fore, 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 wash'd his feet in it. The enfuing defcription of Hell is no lefs remarkable in the circumftances. † In flaming heaps the raging ocean rolls, Could the most minute Dutch-painters have been more exact? How inimitably circumftantial is this also of a war-horse ! His eye-balls burn, he wounds the Smoaking plain, § They brandifh high in air their threatning ftaves, 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 diffufed circumlocutory manner of expreffing a known idea, which should be fo myfteriously couch'd, as to give the reader the pleasure of guessing what it is that the author can poffibly mean, and a strange furprize when he finds it. The Poet I laft mentioned is incomparable in this figure. * A waving fea of heads was round me spread, And still fresh ftreams the gazing deluge fed. Here is a waving sea of heads, which by a fresh stream of heads, grows to be a gazing deluge of heads. You come at laft to find, it means a great crowd. How pretty and how genteel is the following? Whofe fuckets are moist alchemy : What is this but a Bee gathering honey? ‡ Little Syren of the stage, Who would think, this was only a poor gentle- We may define Amplification to be making the most of a Thought; it is the Spinning-wheel of the Bathos, which draws out and fpreads it in the * Job, p. 78. + Cleveland. ተ A. Philips to Cuzzona. |