In just degrees, and shining order plac'd,

Spectators charm'd, and the bleft dwellings grac'd.
Through all the enlighten'd air swift fire-works flew,
Which with repeated fhouts glad cherubs threw.
Comets afcended with their fweeping 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 facrifice to that paffion his friend or his God, would it not be a fhame, if he who is fmit with the love of the bathos, fhould not facrifice to it all other tranfitory regards? You fhall hear a zealous proteftant, deacon invoke a faint, and modeftly befeech her to do more for us than Providence.

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

And guide us through the mists of providence,
In which we ftray

Neither will he, if a goodly fimile come in his

way, fcru

ple to affirm himself an eye-witnefs of things never yet beheld by man, or never in existence; as thus,

Thus have I feen in Araby the blest

A phoenix couch'd upon het funeral nest ‡.

BUT to convince you, that nothing is fo great, which a marvellous genius prompted by this laudable zeal is not able to leffen; hear how the moft fublime of all beings is represented in the following images.

Prince Arthur, p. so.

Fint

N. B. In order to do'justice to these great poets, our citations are taken from the beft, the laft, and moft correct editions of their works. That which we use of Prince Arthur, is in duodecimo, 3714, the fourth edition revifed. Pope.

+A. Philips on the death of Q. Mary.

+ Anon.

First he is a PAINTER.

Sometimes the Lord of nature in the air

Spreads forth his clouds, his fable canvas, where
His pencil, dipt in heavenly colour bright,
Paints his fair rain-bow, charming to the fight *.

Now he is a CHEMIST.

Th' almighty chemist does his work prepare,
Pours down his waters on the thirsty plain,
Digests his lightening, and distils his rain ↑.

Now he is a WRESTLER.

Me in his griping arms th' Eternal took,
And with fuch mighty force my body shook,
That the strong grafp my members forely bruis'd,
Broke all my bones, and all my finews loos'd f.

Now a RECRUITING OFFICER.

For clouds the fun-beams levy fresh fupplies,
And raife recruits of vapours, which arise
Drawn from the feas, to mufter in the skies

Now a peaceable GUARANTEE.

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

In the following lines he is a GOLD-BEATER.

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 fecret rise,

Born on rebounding fun-beams through the skies,
Are thicken'd, wrought, and whiten'd, till they grow
A heavenly fleece

A MERCER, or PACKER.

Didft thou one end of air's wide curtain hold,

And help the bales of æther to unfold;

Say, which cærulean pile was by thy hand enroll'd ‡ ‡?

A BUTLER.

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

God in the wilderness his table spread,

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

CHAP. VI.

Of the feveral kinds of geniufes in the profound, and the marks and characters of each.

I

DOUBT not, but the reader, by this cloud of examples, begins to be convinced of the truth of our affertion, that the bathos is an art; and that the genius of no mortal whatever, following the mere ideas of na

+ Black, Pf. civ. p. 181. P 131

P. 174

P. 18.
Black. Song of Mofes, P. 218.

ture

ture, and unaffifted with an habitual, nay, laborious peculiarity of thinking, could arrive at images fo wonderfully low and unnacountable. The great author, from whose treasury we have drawn all thefe inftances, (the father of the bathos, and indeed the Homer of it) has, like that immortal Greek, confined his labours to the greater poetry, and thereby left room for others to acquire a due fhare of praise in inferior kinds. Many painters, who could never hit a nose or an eye, have, with a felicity, copied a small-pox, or been admirable at a toad or a red-herring: and feldom are we without geniuses for fill-life, which they can work up and ftiffen with incredible accuracy.

AN univerfal genius rifes not in an age; but when he rifes, armies rife in him! he pours forth five or fix epic poems with greater facility, than five or fix pages can be produced by an elaborate and fervile copier after naturé or the antients. It is affirmed by Quintilian, that the fame genius, which made Germanicus fo great a general, would with equal application have made him an excellent heroic poet. In like manner, reafoning from the affinity there appears between arts and fciences, I doubt not, but an active catcher of butterflies, a careful and fanciful pattern-drawer, an induftrious collector of fhells, a laborious and a tuneful bag piper, or a diligent breeder of tame rabbits, might feverally excel in their respective parts of the bathos.

I fhall range these confined and lefs copious geniufes under proper claffes, and (the better to give their pictures to the reader) under the names of animals of fome fort or other; whereby he will be enabled, at the first fight of fuch as fhall daily come forth, to know to what kind to refer, and with what authors to compare them.

1. The flying fishes: thefe are writers, who now and then rife upon their fins, and fly out of the profound; but their wings are foon dry, and they drop down to the botG. S. A. H. C. G.

tom.

2. The fallores are authors, that are eternally skimming and fluttering up and down, but all their agility is employed to catch flies. L. T. W. P. Lord H.

3. The oftriches are fuch, whose heaviness rarely permits them to raise themselves from the ground; their

wings are of no ufe to lift them up, their motion is be tween flying and walking; but then they run very faft. D. F. L. E. the Hon. E. H.

4. The parrots are they, that repeat another's words in fuch a hoarfe odd voice, as makes them feem their own. W. B. W. S. C. C. the Rev. D. D.

5. The didappers are authors, that keep themselves long out of fight, under water, and come up now and then, where you least expected them. L. W. G. D. . Efq; the Hon. Sir W. Y.

6. The porpoifes are unwieldy and big; they put all their numbers into a great turmoil and tempeft, but whenever they appear in plain light (which is seldom) they are only shapelefs and ugly monsters. I. D. C. G. 1. 0.

7. The frogs are fuch, as can neither walk nor fly, but can leap and bound to admiration: they live generally in the bottom of a ditch, and make a great noife, whenever they thrust their heads above water. E. W. I. M. Efq; T. D. Gent.

8. The eels are obfcure authors, that wrap themselves up in their own mud, but are mighty nimble and pert. L. W. L. T. P. M. General C..

9. The tortoises are flow and chill, and, like paftoral writers, delight much in gardens: they have, for the moft part, a fine embroidered fhell, and underneath it a heavy lump. A. P. W..B. L. E. the right Honourable E. of S.

THESE are the chief characteristics of the bathos, and in each of thefe kinds we have the comfort to be bleffed with fundry and manifold choice spirits in this our island.

CHAP. VII.

Of the profound, when it confifts in the thought. WE have already laid down the principles, upon

of forming his thought by familiarizing his mind to the lowest objects to which, it may be added, that vulgar converfation will greatly contribute. There is no questi.

on,