The hills forget they're fix'd, and in their fright You here fee the hills not only trembling, but fhaking off woods from their backs, to run the fafter after this you are prefented with a foot-race of mountains and woods, where the woods distance the mountains, that, like corpulent purfy fellows, come puffing and paiting a vaft way behind them. CHA P. IX. Of imitation, and the manner of imitating. HAT the true authors of the profound are to imi, tate diligently the examples in their own way is not to be questioned, and that divers have, by this means, attained to a depth, whereunto their own weight could never have carried them, is evident by fundry inftances. Who fees not that De Foe was the poetical fon of Withers, Tate of Ogilby, E. Ward of John Taylor, and Eufden of Blackmore? Therefore when we fit down to write, let us bring fome great author to our mind, and afk ourselves this queftion; how would Sir Richard have faid this? do I exprefs myself as fimply as Ambrose Philips or flow my numbers with the quiet thoughtleffness of Mr Welfted! BUT it may feem fomewhat strange to affert, that our proficient should also read the works of thofe famous poets, who have excelled in the Jublime: yet is not this a paradox. As Virgil is faid to have read Ennius, out of his dunghill to draw gold, fo may our author read Shakefpear, Milton, and Dryden for the contrary end, to bury their gold in his own dunghill. A true genius, when he finds any thing lofty or fhining in them, will have the kill to bring it down, take off the glofs, or quite dif charge + Job, p. 267. charge the colour, by fome ingenious circumftance or periphrafe, fome addition or diminution, or by fome of thofe figures, the ufe of which we shall fhew in our next chapter. THE book of Job is acknowledged to be infinitely fublime, and yet has not the father of the bathos reduced it in every page? is there a paffage in all Virgil more painted up and laboured than the defcription of Etna in the third Æneid ? Horrificis juxta tonat Ætna ruinis, Interdumque atram prorumpit ad æthera nubem, (I beg pardon of the gentle English reader, and fuch of our readers as understand not Latin.) Lo! how this is taken down by our British poet, by the fingle happy thought of throwing the mountain into a fit of the cholic. Ætna, and all the burning mountains, find HORACE in fearch of the fublime, ftruck his head against the ftars +; but Empedocles, to fathom the profound, threw himself into Etna. And who but would imagine our excellent modern had also been there, from this defcription? Imitation is of two forts; the firft is, when we force to our own purposes the thoughts of others; the fecond confifts in copying the imperfections or blemishes of celebrated authors. I have feen a play profeffedly writ in G 3 R the *Pr. Arthur, p. 75. + Sublimi feriam fidera vertice. the ftile of Shakespear; wherein the refemblance lay in one fingle line, And fo good morrow t'ye, good master lieutenant. AND fundry poems, in imitation of Milton, where; with the utmost exactness, and not so much as one exception, nevertheless was conftantly nathlefs, embroidered was broidered, hermits were hermites, difdained was fdeigned, fhady umbrageous, enterprize emprize, pagan paynin, pinions pennons, fweet dulcet, orchards orchats, bridge work pontifical; nay, her was hir, and their was thir through the whole poem. And in very deed, there is no other way, by which the true modern poet could read to any purpose the works of fuch men, as Milton and Shakespear. It may be expected, that, like other critics, I fhould next fpeak of the paffions: but as the main end and principal effect of the bathes is to produce tranquillity of mind (and fure it is a better defign to promote fleep than madness) we have little to fay on this fubject. Nor will the fhort bounds of this discourse allow us to treat at large of the emollients and opiats of poefy; of the cool, and the manner of producing it; or of the methods used by our authors in managing the paffions. I shall but tranfiently remark, that nothing contributes fo much to the cool, as the ufe of wit in expreffing paffion: the true genius rarely fails of points, conceits, and proper fimiles on fuch occafions: this we may term the pathetic epigrammatical, in which even puns are made ufe of with good fuccefs. Hereby our beft authors have avoided throwing themfelves, or their readers, into any indecent tranf ports. BUT, as it is fometimes needful to excite the paffions of our antagonist in the polemic way, the true ftudents in the law have conftantly taken their methods from low life, where they obferved, that to move anger ufe is made of fcoiding and railing; to move love, of bawdry; to beget favour and friendship, of grofs flattery; and to produce fear, of calumniating an adverfary with crimes obnoxious to the ftate. As for hame, it is a filly paffi on, on, of which as our authors are incapable themselves, fo they would not produce it in others. CHAP. X. Of tropes and figures and first of the variegating, confounding, and reversing figures.. BUT UT we proceed to the figures. We cannot too earneftly recommend to our authors the study of the abuse of fpeech. They ought to lay it down as a principle, to fay nothing in the ufual way, but, if poffible, in the direct contrary. Therefore the figures must be fo turned, as to manifeft that intricate and wonderful caft of head, which diftinguishes all writers of this kind: or, as I may fay, to refer exactly the mold, in which they were formed, in all its inequalities, cavities, obliquities, odd crannies, and distortions. It would be endless, nay, impoffible to enumerate all fuch figures; but we shall content ourselves to range the principal, which moft powerfully contribute to the bathos, under three claffes, 1. The variegating, confounding, or reverfing tropes and figures. II. The magnifying; and, III. The diminishing. We cannot avoid giving to these the Greek or Roman names; but in tenderness to our countrymen and fellowwriters, many of whom, however exquifite, are wholly ignorant of those languages, we have also explained them in our mother tongue. Of the first fort, nothing fo much conduces to the bathos, as the Nail my fleeve. From whence results the fame kind of pleasure to the mind, as to the eye when we behold Harlequin trimming himself with a hatchet, hewing down a tree with a rafor, making his tea in a cauldron, and brewing his ale in a teapot, to the incredible fatisfaction of the British spectator. Another fource of the bathos is, METONYMY, the inverfion of causes for effects, of inventors for inventions, &c. Lac'd in her cofins new appear'd the bride, The SYNECDOche, } which confifts in the ufe of a part for the whole. You may call a young woman fometimes pretty-face and pigseyes, and fometimes fnotty-nofe and draggle-tail. Or of accidents for perfons; as a lawyer is called fplit-cause, a taylor prick-loufe, &c. Or of things belonging to a man, for the man himself; as a fword-man, a gownman, a t-m-t-d-man; a white-staff, a turn-key, &c. 66 The APOSIOPESIS, "what fhall I an excellent figure for the ignorant, as, fay?" when one has nothing to fay: or, "I can no "more," when one really can no more. Expreffions which the gentle reader is so good as never to take in earneft. The METAPHOR. The first rule is to draw it from the lowest things, which is a certain way to fink the highest; as when you speak of the thunder of heaven, fay, • Stays. + Tweezer-cafe. Watch. The Fan. ** A fort of Perriwig: all words in ufe at this present year 1727. Pope. |