Refuse of swords, and gleanings of a fight, Lessen in numbers, and contract his host. Where'er his friends retire, or foes succeed, Cover'd with tempests, and in oceans drown'd. Of all which the Perfection is THE TAUTOLOGY. 1 Break thro' the billows, and-divide the main. In smoother numbers, and—in softer verse. 2 Divide―and part-the silver'd World—in two. With ten thousand others equally musical, and plentifully flowing through most of our celebrated modern Poems. CHAP. XII. OF EXPRESSION, AND THE SEVERAL SORTS OF STYLE OF THE PRESENT AGE. THE Expression is adequate, when it is proportionably low to the Profundity of the Thought. It must not be always Grammatical, lest it appear pedantic and ungentlemanly; nor too clear, for fear it become vulgar; for obscurity bestows a cast of the wonderful, and throws an oracular dignity upon a piece which hath no meaning. Tons. Misc. 12.mo. vol. iv. p. 291, 4th Edit. For example, sometimes use the wrong Number; The Sword and Pestilence at once devours, instead of devour3. Sometimes the wrong Case; And who more fit to soothe the God than thee? instead of thou: And rather than say, Thetis saw Achilles weep, she heard him weep. We must be exceeding careful in two things: first, in the Choice of low Words: secondly, in the sober and orderly way of ranging them. Many of our Poets are naturally bless'd with this talent, insomuch that they are in the circumstance of that honest Citizen, who had made Prose 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 last cited author, who, though otherwise by no means of our rank, seemed once in his life to have a mind to be simple.) 5 If not, a prize I will myself decree, From him, or him, or else perhaps from thee. full of days was he; Two ages past, he liv'd the third to see. The king of forty kings, and honour'd more 8 That I may know, if thou my pray'r deny, 3 Ti. Hom. II. i. W. ⚫ Our author himself has more than once fallen into this fault, as hath been observed in the notes of this edition, and of which Dr. Lowth in his Grammar mentions many instances. 5 Ti. Hom. Il. i. p. 11. 7 Idem. p. 19. 6 Idem, p. 17. W. 8 P. 34. W. 9 Then let my mother once be rul'd by me, Though much more wise than I pretend to be. Or these of the same hand 1. 2 I leave the arts of poetry and verse To them that practise them with more success: 3 And so at once, dear friend and muse, farewell. Sometimes a single Word will vulgarize a poetical idea; as where a Ship set on fire owes all the Spirit of the Bathos to one choice word that ends the line. • And his scorch'd ribs the hot contagion fry'd. And in that description of a World in ruins : 5 Should the whole frame of nature round him break, He unconcern'd would hear the mighty Crack. So also in these: 6 Beasts tame and savage 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 sweet liquor squeeze, That cheers the Forest and the Garden trees. 9 Ti. Hom. Il. i. p. 38. 1 Asserting plainly that the first book of the Iliad, published by Tickell, was really the work of Addison. 2 Tons. Misc. 12mo. vol. iv. p. 292, fourth Edit. W. * These are the two last feeble lines of Addison's epistle to Sacheverell; and the two preceding ones are as bad. Pr. Arthur, p. 151. ⚫ Job, 263. • Tons. Misc. vol. vi. p. 119. W. 7 Id. Job, 264. W. It is also useful to employ Technical Terms, which estrange your style from the great and general ideas of nature: and the higher your subject is, the lower should you search into mechanics for your expression. If you describe the garment of an angel, say that his Linen was finely spun, and bleach'd on the happy plains. Call an army of angels, Angelic Cuirassiers; and, if you have occasion to mention a number of misfortunes, style them 2 Fresh Troops of Pains, and regimented Woes. STYLE is divided by the Rhetoricians into the Proper and the Figured. Of the Figured we have al 8 No passage in Blackmore himself can exceed the vulgarity of introducing technical terms, and sea language, more than the following lines of the 146, 147, and 148, stanzas of Dryden's Annus Mirabilis ; "So here some pick out bullets from the sides, Some drive old oakum thro' each seam and rift. CXLVII. "With boiling pitch another near at hand From friendly Sweden brought, the seams instops; Which well laid o'er, the salt sea waves withstand, And shake them from the rising beak in drops. CXLVIII. "Some the gall'd ropes with dauby marling blind, And one below their ease or stiffness notes." Who would think it possible that these lines, and there are many such to be found in his works, could have been written by the author of Palamon and Arcite, and the Ode on St. Cecilia's ready 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 most gaudy, and do many times grow in great plenty at the bottom of Ponds and Ditches. A fine writer in this kind presents you with the following Posie: 3 The groves appear all drest with wreaths of flowers, And from their leaves drop aromatic showers, Whose fragrant heads in mystic twines above, Exchange their sweets,and mix'd with thousand kisses, As if the willing branches strove To beautify and shade the grove, 4 (which indeed most branches do). But this is still excelled by our Laureat: 5 Branches in branches twin'd compose the grove, And shoot and spread, and blossom into love. The trembling palms their mutual vows repeat, 3 Behn's Poems, p. 2. W. It is surprising to find so false and florid a conceit as is contained in the following lines, in a writer generally so chaste and correct as Addison. "While here the vine on hills of ruins climbs. Industrious to conceal great Bourbon's crimes." Campaign. 5 Guardian, 12mo. 127. |