the Bath, the Thought (as in justness it ought) goes still deeper.

* Venus beheld her, 'midst her crowd of slaves, And thought herself just risen from the waves.

How much out of the way of common sense is this reflection of Venus, not knowing herself from the lady?

Of the same nature is that noble mistake of a frighted stag in full chase, who (saith the Poet) Hears his own feet, and thinks they sound like more, And fears the hind feet will overtake the fore.

So astonishing 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 Himself.

However our next instance is certainly an original: Speaking of a beautiful infant:

Anon. W.

* Theobald, Double Falsehood. W.

It is a little remarkable that this line of Theobald, which is thought to be the masterpiece of absurdity, is evidently copied from a line of Seneca, in the Hercules Furens:

So fair thou art, that if great Cupid be
A child, as Poets say, sure thou art he.
Fair Venus would mistake thee for her own
Did not thy eyes proclaim thee not her son.
There all the lightnings of thy Mother's shine,
And with a fatal brightness kill in thine.

First he is Cupid, then he is not Cupid; first Venus would mistake him, then she would not mistake him; next his eyes are his Mother's, and lastly they are not his Mother's, but his own.

Another author, describing a Poet that shines forth amidst a circle of Critics,

Thus Phœbus through the Zodiac takes his way, And amid Monsters rises into day.

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 stopping at minute considerations in vain might the ram, the bull, the goat, the lion, the crab, the scorpion, 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 esteemed out of nature. But what of that? with a boldness peculiar to these daring geniuses, what he found not monsters, he made so.

CHAP. VIII.

OF THE PROFUND, CONSISTING IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, AND OF AMPLIFICATION AND PERIPHRASE IN GENERAL.

WHAT in great measure distinguishes other writers from ours, is their choosing and separating such circumstances in a description as ennoble or elevate the subject.

The circumstances which are most natural are obvious, therefore not astonishing or peculiar. But those that are far-fetched, or unexpected, or hardly compatible, will surprise prodigiously. These therefore we must principally hunt out; but above all, preserve a laudable Prolixity; presenting the whole and every side at once of the image to view. For Choice and Distinction are not only a curb to the spirit, and limit the descriptive faculty, but also lessen the book; which is frequently of the worst consequence of all to our author.

When Job says in short, "He washed his feet in butter," (a circumstance some Poets would have softened, or passed over) now hear how this butter is spread out by the great Genius:

1 With teats distended with their milky store,
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.

'Blackm. Job. p. 133. W.

How cautious! and particular! He had (says our author) so many herds, which herds thriv'd so well, and thriving so well gave so much milk, and that milk produced so much butter, that, if he did not, he might have wash'd his feet in it.

The ensuing description of Hell is no less remarkable in the circumstances:

2 In flaming heaps the raging ocean rolls,
Whose livid waves involve despairing souls;
The liquid burnings dreadful colours shew,
Some deeply red, and others faintly blue.

Could the most minute Dutch painters have been more exact? How inimitably circumstantial is this also of a war-horse!

4

His eye-balls burn, he wounds the smoking plain, And knots of scarlet ribbon deck his mane.

Of certain Cudgel-players:

• They brandish high in air their threatning staves, Their hands a woven guard of ozier saves,

In which they fix their hazle weapon's end.

Who would not think the Poet had past his whole life at Wakes in such laudable diversions? since he teaches us how to hold, nay how to make, a Cudgel! Periphrase is another great aid to Prolixity; being a confused circumlocutory manner of expressing

2 Pr. Arth. p. 89. 3 Anon. Pr. Arth. p. 197. W. It is to be lamented that our author himself has furnished too many examples of improper Periphrase and Amplification in his

a known idea, which should be so mysteriously couched, as to give the reader the pleasure of guessing what it is that the author can possibly mean, and a strange surprise when he finds it.

The Poet I last mentioned is incomparable in this figure.

6 A waving sea of heads was round me spread,
And still fresh streams the gazing deluge fed.

translations of Homer. Of a Tripod set on the fire he says, (Odyssey, b. viii.)

Of

"The flames climb round it with a fierce embrace,
The fuming waters bubble o'er the blaze."

a person wearied:

66 -Lost in lassitude be all the man:
Depriv'd of voice, of motion, and of breath;
The soul scarce waking in the arms of death.”

Of shutting a door, (b. i.)

"The bolt obedient to the silken cord,

To the strong staple's inmost depth restor❜d,
Secur'd the valve.

Of a sword, (b. viii.)

"Whose blade of brass displays

A ruddy gleam; whose hilt a silver blaze;

Whose ivory sheath inwrought with curious pride,
Adds terror to the weaver's side."

These, and a number of other lines that might be added, are instances of the false-florid and over-labour'd ornament, directly contrary to the simplicity and energy of Homer. At the same time it ought to be observed that he was betrayed into this turgid, forced, and figurative language, by the difficulty of translating Homer into rhyme; for he never falls into this fault in his other works, which are remarkable for purity and brevity of style. "C'est une belle chose (says Corneille, with his amiable frankness in one of his prefaces), que de faire, vers, puissans & majestueux; cette pompe ravit d'ordinaire les esprits, & pour le moins les éblouit: mais il faut que les sujets en fassent naitre les occasions." Clitandre, p. 108.