The rifing fun our grief did fee, The fetting fun did fee the fame, While wretched we remembred thee, * O Sion, Sion, lovely name. 6. The MACROLOGY and PLEONASM are as generally coupled, as a lean rabbit with a + The growth of meadows, and the pride of fields, The TAUTOLOGY. Break thro' the billows, and-divide the main In fmoother numbers, and-in fofter verse. § Divide-and part-the sever'd World--in two. With ten thousand others equally mufical, and plentifully flowing thro' moft of our celebrated modern Poems. + Camp. * Ibid. Tonf. Mifc. 120 § Ibid. vol. vi. p. 121. CHAP. CHA P. XII. Of Expreffion, and the several Sorts of Style of the prefent Age. T HE Expreffion is adequate, when it is proportionably low to the Profundity of the Thought. It must not be always Grammatical, left it appear pedantic and ungentlemanly; nor too clear, for fear it becomes vulgar; for obscurity bestows a cast of the wonderful, and throws an oracular dignity upon a piece which hath no meaning. For example, fometimes use the wrong Number; The Sword and Peftilence at once devours, inftead of devour. * Sometimes the wrong Cafe; And who more fit to footh the God than thee? inftead of thou: And rather than fay, Thetis faw Achilles weep, fhe heard him weep. We must be exceeding careful in two things: first, in the Choice of low Words: fecondly, in the Sober and orderly way of ranging them. Many of our poets are naturally blefs'd with this talent, infomuch that they are in the circumftance of that honeft Citizen, who had made Profe all his life without knowing it. Let verses run in this manner, just to be a vehicle to the words: (I take them from my laft cited author, who, tho' otherwife by no means of our rank, seemed once in his life to have a mind to be fimple.) † If not, a prize I will myfe'f decree, ‡ full of Days was he; Two ages past, he liv'd the third to fee. * Ti. Hom, Il. i. Idem, p. 17. + Ti. Hom. II. i. p. 11. $ The * The king of forty kings, and honour'd more By mighty fove 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. Or these of the fame hand. I leave the arts of poetry and verse To them that practise them with more fuccefs: And fo at once, dear friend and mufe, farewel Sometimes a fingle Word will vulgarize 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 his fcorch'd ribs the hot Contagion fry'd. And in that description of a World in ruins, Should the whole frame of nature round him break, So also in these. ++ Beasts 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, * Idem, p. 19. + P. 34. § Tonf. Mifc. 120 vol. iv. p. 292, fourth Edit. Arthur, p. 151. ++ Job, 263. * P. 38. Pr. Tonf. Mifc. vol. vi. p. 119. ‡‡ Id. Job, 264. 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 fhould you fearch into mechanicks for your expreffion. If you defcribe the garment of an angel, fay that his Linen was finely fpun, and bleached on the happy Plains. † Call an army of angels, Angelic Cuirafiers, and, if you have occafion to mention a number of misfortunes, ftyle them + Fresh Troops of Pains, and regimented Woes. 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 fhall 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 most Gaudy, 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 showers, Whofe fragrant heads in myftic twines above, Exchang'd their sweets, and mix'd with thousand kiffes, As if the willing branches ftrove To beautify and fhade the grove, which indeed most branches do.) But this is ftill excelled by our Laureat, *Prince Arthur, p. 19. + Ibid. p. 339. Job, p. 86. Behn's Poems, F. 2. * Branches * Branches in branches twin'd compofe the grove, Hear alfo our Homer. + His Robe of State is form'd of light refin'd, 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 ftudied: 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 Tafie of the Times the works of the Antients. This we rightly phrafe Doing them into English, and Making them English; two expreffions of great Propriety, the one denoting our Neglect of the Manner how, the other the Force and Compulsion with which it is brought about. It is by virtue of this Style that Tacitus talks like a Coffee-House Politician, Jofephus like the British Gazetteer, Tully is as fhort and smart as Seneca or Mr. Afgill, Marcus Aurelius is excellent at * Guardian, 12mo 127. + Blackm. Pf. civ. Snipfnap, |