So fair thou art, that if great Cupid be
A child, as poets fay, fure though art he.
Fair Venus would mistake thee for her own,
Did not thy eyes proclaim thee not her jon.
There all the lightnings of thy mother shine,
And with a fatal brightness kill in thine.

First he is Cupid, then he is not Cupid; first Venus would miftake him, then fhe would not mistake him; next his eyes are his mother's, and laftly they are not his mother's, but his own.

Another author, defcribing a poet, that fhines forth amidst a circle of critics,

Thus Phoebus thro' the zodiac takes his way,
And amid monsters rifes into day.

What a peculiarity is here of invention? the author's pencil, like the wand of Circe, turns all into monsters at a ftroke. A great genius takes things in the lump, without ftopping at minute confiderations in vain might the ram,, the bull, the goat, the lion, the crab, the fcorpion, the fishes, all ftand 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 monfters there were only the centaur and the maid, that could be efteemed out of nature. But what of that? with a boldnefs peculiar to thefe daring geniuses, what he found not monsters, he made ío.

CHAP

CHAP. VIII.

Of the profound, confifling in the circumftances :: and of amplification and periphrase in general.

WHA

7HAT in a great measure diftinguishes other writers from ours, is their chufing and feparating fuch circumstances in a description, as ennoble or elevate the fubject.

The circumftances, which are moft natural, are obvious, therefore not aftonishing or peculiar; but thofe that are far-fetched or unexpected, or hardly compatible, will furprize prodigioufly. These therefore we must principally hunt out; but above all preferve a laudable prolixity; prefenting the whole and every fide at once of the image to view. For choice and diftinction are not only a curb to the fpirit, and limit the defcriptive faculty, but allo leffen the book; which is frequently the worft confequence of all to our author..

Job fays in fhort, he wafhed his feet in butter; a circumstance fome poets would have foftened, or past over: now, hear how this butter is fpread out. by the great genius.

With teats diftended with their milky flore,
Such num'rous lowing herds, before my door,
Their painful burthen to unload did meet,
That we with butter might have wash'd our feet*.

How cautious and particular!" He had," fays our author, "fo many herds, which herds thrived "fo well, and thriving fo well gave fo much milk,

Blackm, Job, p. 133.

H 2

" and

"and that milk produced fo much butter, that, "if he did not, he might have washed his feet in it."

The enfuing defcription of hell is no lefs remarkable in the circumftances..

In flaming heaps the raging ocean rolls,
Whofe livid waves involve defpairing fouls;
The liquid burnings dreadful colours fhew,
Some deeply red and others faintly blue *.

Could the moft minute Dutch-painter have been more exact? how inimitiably circumftantial is this alfo of a war-horse !

His eye-balls burn, he wounds the fmoking plain, And knots of fcarlet ribband deck his mane +.

Of certain cudgel players..

They brandifb high in air their threat'ning faves
Their hands a woven guard of ozier faves,
In which they fix their hazle weapon's end ‡.

Who would not think the poet had paft his whole life at wakes in fuch laudable diverfions? fince he teaches us how to hold, nay, how to make a cudgel!

Periphrafe is another great aid to prolixity; being a diffufed circumlocutory manner of expreffing a known idea, which fhould be fo myfteriously Couched, as to give the reader the pleasure of gues fing what it is, that the author can poffibly mean; and a ftrange furprize when he finds it?

The poet I latt mentioned is incomparable in this figure

*Prince Arthur, p. 89.

+ Anon.

Prince Arthur, p. 197.

A

A waving fea of heads was round me fpread,
And ftill fresh ftreams the gazing deluge fed ||.

Here is a waving fea of heads, which, by a fresh ftream of heads, grows to be a gazing deluge of heads. You come at laft to find, it means a great croud.

How pretty and how genteel is the following!

Nature's confectioner

Whofe fuckets are moist alchymy:
The ftill of his refining mold

Minting the garden into gold*.

What is this, but a bee gathering honey?

Little fyren of the ftage,

Empty warbler, breathing lyre,
Wanton gale of fond defire,

Tuneful mischief, vocal spell.+

Who would think, this was only a poor gentle woman, that fung finely?

We may define amplification to be making the moft of a thought; it is the fpinning-wheel of the bathos, which draws out and fpreads it into the finest thread. There are amplifiers, who can extend half a dozen thin thoughts over a whole folio; but for which, the tale of many a vaft romance, and the substance of many a fair volume, might be reduced to the fize of a primmer.

In the book of Job are these words, " Haft thou "commanded the morning, and caufed the dayfpring to know his place?" how is this extend-ed by the most celebrated amplifier of our age?

Job, p. 78.

Clevland. At Philips to Cuzzona,

H.3.

Cant

Canft thou fet forth th' etherial mines on high,
Which the refulgent ore of light fupply?
Is the celeftial furnace to thee known,
In which I melt the golden metal down?
Treafures, from whence I deal out light as faft,
As all my ftars and lavish funs can waste ‡.

The fame author hath amplified a paffage in the civ. Pfalm; " He looks on the earth, and it trembles. He touches the hills, and they fmoke."

The hills forget they're fix'd, and in their fright
Caft off their weight, and eafe themselves for flight:
The woods, with terror wing'd, cut fly the wind,
And leave the heavy, panting hills behind *.

:

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 footrace of mountains and woods, where the woods distance the mountains, that, like corpulent purfy fellows, come puffing and panting a vaft way behind them.

CHAP. IX.

Of imitation, and the manner of imitating.

TH

HAT the true authors of the profound are to imitate diligently the examples in their own way, is not to be queftioned, and that divers have, by this means, attained to a depth, whereunto their own weight could never have carried * Job, p. 267.

Job, p. 108.

them