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: With teats distended with their milky store, That we with butter might have wash'd our feet'. How cautious! and particular! He had (says our author) so many herds, which herds thrived 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 washed his feet in it. The ensuing description of hell is no less remarkable in the circumstances: In flaming heaps the raging ocean rolls, Could the most minute Dutch painter have been more exact? How inimitably circumstantial is this also of a war-horse! His eye-balls burn, he wounds the smoking plain, 7 Blackm. Job, p. 133.-Warburton. 1 Anon. Of certain cudgel-players: They brandish high in air their threatening staves, Who would not think the poet had passed his whole life at wakes in such laudable diversions? since he teaches us how to hold, nay, how to make a cudgel! 3 Periphrase is another great aid to prolixity; being a confused circumlocutory manner of expressing 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: 2 Pr. Arth. p. 197.-Warburton. 3 It is to be lamented that our author himself has furnished too many examples of improper periphrase and amplification in his translations of Homer. Of a Tripod set on the fire, he says (Odyssey, b. viii.) : "The flames climb round it with a fierce embrace, The fuming waters bubble o'er the blaze." Of a person wearied: Lost in lassitude be all the man ; Depriv'd of voice, of motion, and of breath; Of shutting a door (b. i.): "The bolt, obedient to the silken cord, To the strong staple's inmost depth restor❜d, 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, These, and a number of other lines that might be added, are instances of the false-florid and over-laboured 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 et majestueux ; cette pompe ravit d'ordinaire les esprits, et pour le moins les éblouit: mais il faut que les sujets en fassent naître les occasions." CLITANDRE, p. 108.— Warton. A waving sea of heads was round me spread, Here is a waving sea of heads, which, by a fresh stream of heads, grows to be a gazing deluge of heads. You come at last to find, it means a great crowd. How pretty and how genteel is the following! Nature's confectioner, Whose suckets are moist alchemy; The still of his refining mold Minting the garden into gold. What is this but a bee gathering honey? Little Syren of the stage, Tuneful mischief, vocal spell. Who would think this was only a poor gentlewoman that sung finely? We may define amplification to be making the most of a thought; it is the spinning-wheel of the Bathos, which draws out and spreads it in 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 vast romance, and the substance of many a fair volume, might be reduced into the size of a primer. In the book of Job are these words: "Hast thou commanded the morning, and caused the day-spring to know his place?" How is this extended by the most celebrated amplifier of our age? Canst thou set forth the etherial mines on high, 4 Job, p. 78. 5 Cleveland. 6 A. Philips to Cuzzona. Warburton. Is the celestial furnace to thee known? The same author hath amplified a passage in the civth Psalm: "He looks on the earth, and it trembles. He touches the hills, and they smoke." The hills forget they're fix'd, and in their fright, You here see the hills not only trembling, but shaking off the woods from their backs, to run the faster. After this, you are presented with a foot-race of mountains and woods, where the woods distance the mountains, that, like corpulent pursy fellows, come puffing and panting a vast way behind them. CHAPTER IX. OF IMITATION, AND THE MANNER OF IMITATING. THAT the true authors of the profund are to imitate 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 7 Job, p. 108. 8 Job, p. 267.-Warburton. There are rather too many examples, however apposite they may be, taken from Blackmore alone. The Job of Sandys does not seem to be admired and known, in a degree equal to its merits. Harte told me how highly Pope thought of it. The versification is equal to that of Waller. There is great force and energy in Young's Paraphrase on part of the book of Job.-Warton. 9 have carried them, is evident by sundry instances. Who sees not that De Foe was the poetical son of Withers, Tate of Ogilby, E. Ward of John Taylor, and E-n of Blackmore? Therefore, when we sit down to write', let us bring some great author to our mind, and ask ourselves this question: How would Sir Richard have said this? Do I express myself as simply as Ambrose Philips, or flow my numbers with the quiet thoughtlessness of Mr. Welsted? But it may seem somewhat strange to assert, that our proficient should also read the works of those famous poets who have excelled in the sublime. Yet is not this a paradox. As Virgil is said to have read Ennius, out of his dunghill to draw gold, so may our author read Shakespear, Milton, and Dryden, for the contrary end, to bury their gold in his own dunghill. A true genius, when he finds anything lofty or shining in them, will have the skill to bring it down, take off the gloss, or quite discharge the colour by some ingenious circumstance or periphrase, some addition or diminution, or by some of those figures, the use of which we shall show in our next chapter. The book of Job is acknowledged to be infinitely sublime, and yet has not the father of the Bathos reduced it in every page? Is there a passage in all Virgil more painted up and laboured than the description of Ætna in the third Æneid? Horrificis juxta tonat Etna ruinis, Interdumque atram prorumpit ad æthera nubem, 9 Eusden. 1 An admirable parody on the Fourteenth Section of Longinus, when he advises the writer to ask himself, whilst he is composing any work, "How would Homer, Plato, or Demosthenes, have expressed themselves on this subject ?"—Warton. 2 These two words, after he had said, " Attollitque globos flammarum," |