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tion, in order to join the credible with the surprising, our author shall produce the credible, by painting nature in her lowest simplicity; and the surprising, by contradicting common opinion. In the very same manner he will affect the marvellous; he will draw Achilles with the patience of Job; a prince talking like a jack-pudding; a maid of honour selling bargains; a footman speaking like a philosopher; and a fine gentleman like a scholar. Whoever is conversant in modern plays, may make a most noble collection of this kind, and at the same time form a complete body of modern ethics and morality.

Nothing seemed more plain to our great authors, than that the world hath long been weary of natural things. How much the contrary are formed to please, is evident from the universal applause daily given to the admirable entertainments of harlequins and magicians on our stage. When an audience behold a coach turned into a wheelbarrow, a conjurer into an old woman, or a man's head where his heels should be; how are they struck with transport and delight! which can only be imputed to this cause, that each object is changed into that which hath been suggested to them by their own low ideas before.

He ought therefore to render himself master of this happy and anti-natural way of thinking, to such a degree, as to be able, on the appearance of any object, to furnish his imagination with ideas infinitely below it. And his eyes should be like unto the wrong end of a perspective glass, by which all the objects of nature are lessened.

For example; when a true genius looks upon the

Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet.-HORACE.

sky, he immediately catches the idea of a piece of blue lutestring, or a child's mantle :

The skies, whose spreading volumes scarce have room,
Spun thin, and wove in nature's finest loom,
The new-born world in their soft lap embrac'd,
And all around their starry mantle cast. *

If he looks upon a tempest, he shall have an image of a tumbled bed, and describe a succeeding calm in this manner:

The ocean, joyed to see the tempest fled,

New lays his waves, and smooths his ruffled bed. +

The triumphs and acclamations of the angels at the creation of the universe present to his imagination" the rejoicings on the lord mayor's day;" and he beholds those glorious beings celebrating their Creator, by huzzaing, making illuminations, and flinging squibs, crackers, and sky-rockets.

Glorious illuminations, made on high

By all the stars and planets of the sky,
In just degrees, and shining order placed,

Spectators charm'd, and the blest dwellings graced.
Through all the enlighten'd air swift fire-works flew,
Which with repeated shouts glad cherubs threw;
Comets ascended with their sweeping train,
Then fell in starry showers and glittering rain.
In air ten thousand meteors blazing hung,

Which from th' eternal battlements were flung. ‡

If a man, who is violently fond of wit, will sacri

+ P. 14.

P. 50.

* Prince Arthur, p. 41, 42. N. B. In order to do justice to these great poets, our citations are taken from the best, the last, and most correct editions of their works. That which we use of Prince Arthur, is in duodecimo, 1714, the fourth edition revised.-POPE.

fice to that passion his friend or his God, would it not be a shame, if he who is smit with the love of the bathos, should not sacrifice to it all other transitory regards? You shall hear a zealous protestant deacon invoke a saint, and modestly beseech her to do more for us than Providence:

Look down, blest saint, with pity then look down,
Shed on this land thy kinder influence,

And guide us through the mists of providence,

In which we stray. *.

Neither will he, if a goodly simile come in his way, scruple to affirm himself an eye-witness of things never yet beheld by man, or never in exist'ence; as thus:

Thus have I seen in Araby the blest,

A phoenix couch'd upon her funeral nest. +

But to convince you that nothing is so great which a marvellous genius prompted by this laudable zeal is not able to lessen, hear how the most sublime of all beings is represented in the following images:

First he is a PAINTER

Sometimes the Lord of nature in the air

Spreads forth his clouds, his sable canvas, where

His pencil, dipt in heavenly colour bright,

Paints his fair rainbow, charming to the sight.

* Ambrose Philips on the death of Queen Mary.-WARBURT. + Anon.-WARTON.

Blackmore, opt. edit. duod. 1716, p. 172.

The gravity of the solemn pedant Scriblerus is not at all kept up in this piece. His criticisms are not any more in character than the Travels of Gulliver, erroneously asserted to be part of the plan intended to be pursued by Pope, Arbuthnot, and Swift. No man ever attempted so many epic poems as Blackmore; and

Now he is a CHEMIST.

Th' Almighty Chemist does his work prepare,
Pours down his waters on the thirsty plain,
Digests his lightning, and distils his rain.

Now he is a WRESTLER.

Me in his griping arms th' Eternal took,
And with such mighty force my body shook,
That the strong grasp my members sorely bruis'd,
Broke all my bones, and all my sinews loos'd, †

Now a RECRUITING OFFICER.

For clouds the sunbeams levy fresh supplies,
And raise recruits of vapours, which arise
Drawn from the seas, to muster in the skies.

Now a peaceable GUARANTEE.

In leagues of peace the neighbours did agree,
And to maintain them God was guarantee. §

P. 170.

few have written so many verses, except perhaps Lopez de Vega, who is said to have produced in all 21,316 verses.-Dr WARTON. *Blackmore, Ps. civ. p. 263. + P. 75. None of these images are more absurd than where Dryden says, in the 281st stanza of his Annus Mirabilis, that the Almighty having looked down for some time on the fire of London, at last claps an extinguisher upon it:

An hollow crystal pyramid he takes,
In firmamental waters dipt above;
Of it a broad extinguisher he makes,

And hoods the flames that to their quarry drove."

But another passage in Dryden is carried to a still greater length of profaneness and absurdity in his Hind and Panther; who speaks thus of the Creator:

"The divine Blacksmith in th' abyss of light,
Yawning and lolling with a careless beat,

Struck out the mute creation at a heat;

But he work'd hard to hammer out our souls,

He blew the bellows, and stirr'd up the coals;

Long time he thought, and could not on a sudden,

Knead up with unskimm'd milk this reasoning pudding."

Blackmore, p. 70.

Dr WARTON.

Then he is an ATTORNEY.

Job, as a vile offender, God indites,
And terrible decrees against me writes,
God will not be my advocate,

My cause to manage or debate.*

In the following lines he is a GOLDBEATER.

Who the rich metal beats, and then with care
Unfolds the golden leaves to gild the fields of air. †
Then a FULLer.

th' exhaling reeks, that secret rise,
Borne on rebounding sunbeams through the skies,
Are thicken'd, wrought, and whiten'd, till they grow
A heavenly fleece +

A MERCER, or PACKER.

Didst thou one end of air's wide curtain hold,
And help the bales of Æther to unfold;

Say, which coerulean pile was by thy hand unroll'd? ||

A BUTLER.

He measures all the drops with wondrous skill,
Which the black clouds his floating bottles fill. §

And a BAKER.

God in the wilderness his table spread,

And in his airy ovens bak'd their bread. I

* Blackmore, p. 61.

+ p. 181.

+ p. 18.

§ P. 131.

Psal. p. 174. It is remarkable that Swift highly commends Blackmore in more than one place; from whom Dr Johnson strangely asserts that Pope might have learnt the art of reasoning in verse, exemplified in the Poem on Creation; but Ambrose Philips related that Blackmore, as he proceeded in his poem, communicated it from time to time to a club of wits, his associates, and that every man contributed as he could, either improvement or correction; so that there are perhaps nowhere in the book thirty lines together that now stand as they were originally written.-Dr WARTON. ¶ Blackmore, Song of Moses, p. 218.

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