But the beauty and energy of it is never so conspicuous, as when it is employed in modernizing and adapting to the taste of the times the works of the ancients. This we rightly phrase doing them into English, and making them English; two expressions of great propriety, the one denoting our neglect of the manner how, the other the force and compulsion with which it is brought about. It is by virtue of this style that Tacitus talks like a Coffee-house politician, Josephus like the British Gazetteer, Tully is as short and smart as Seneca or Mr. Asgill, Marcus Aurelius is excellent at snipsnap, and honest Thomas à Kempis as prim and polite as any preacher at court.

3. THE ALAMODE STYLE,

which is fine by being new, and has this happiness attending it, that it is as durable and extensive as the poem itself. Take some examples of it, in the description of the sun in a mourning coach upon the death of Queen Mary:

See Phoebus now, as once for Phaëton,

Has mask'd his face, and put deep mourning on;
Dark clouds his sable chariot do surround,

And the dull steeds stalk o'er the melancholy round".
Of Prince Arthur's soldiers drinking:

While rich Burgundian wine, and bright Champaign, Chase from their minds the terrors of the main'.

5 In such familiar phrases as these: "One good turn is the shoeing horn of another. He does me good in spite of my teeth.-After a matter of eight years." And in Esop, "The moon was in a heavy twitter." Collier's Antoninus was in the same smart taste. Thomas à Kempis was translated by Dr. Stanhope, whose primness is here noted. There is hardly any species of bad writing but what is exposed in some part or other of this little treatise, in which the justest rules are delivered under the mask of ridicule, fortius et melius than in professed and serious critical discourses.-Warton.

6 Amb. Philips.

7 Pr. Arthur, p. 16.-Warburton.

Whence we also learn, that Burgundy and Champaign make a man on shore despise a storm at sea.

Of the Almighty encamping his regiments:
He sunk a vast capacious deep,

Where he his liquid regiments does keep,
Thither the waves file off, and make their way,
To form the mighty body of the sea;

Where they encamp, and in their station stand,
Entrench'd in works of rock, and lines of sand 3.
Of two armies on the point of engaging:
Yon armies are the cards which both must play ;
At least come off a saver if you may :

Throw boldly at the sum the Gods have set;
These on your side will all their fortunes bet9.

All perfectly agreeable to the present customs and best fashions of our metropolis.

But the principal branch of the alamode is the PRURIENT, a style greatly advanced and honoured of late, by the practice of persons of the first quality; and by the encouragement of the ladies, not unsuccessfully introduced even into the drawing-room. Indeed its incredible progress and conquests may be compared to those of the great Sesostris, and are every where known by the same marks, the images of the genital parts of men or women. It consists wholly of metaphors drawn from two most fruitful sources or springs, the very Bathos of the human body, that is to say

and * * * * Hiatus

* Hiatus magnus lachrymabilis *

* And selling of bargains, and double entendre, and Κιβέρισμος and Ὀλδφιέλδισμος, all derived from the said sources.

8 Blackm. Ps. civ. p. 261.-Warburton.

9 Lee, Sophon.-Warburton.

4. THE FINICAL STYLE',

which consists of the most curious, affected, mincing metaphors, and partakes of the alamode.

As this, of a brook dried by the sun :

Won by the summer's importuning ray,
Th' eloping stream did from her channel stray,
And with enticing sunbeams stole away 2.

Of an easy death :

When watchful death shall on his harvest look,
And see thee, ripe with age, invite the hook;
He'll gently cut thy bending stalk, and thee
Lay kindly in the
grave, his granary 3.

Of trees in a storm:

Oaks, whose extended arms the winds defy;
The tempest sees their strength, and sighs, and passes by t.

Of water simmering over the fire:

The sparkling flames raise water to a smile,

Yet the pleas'd liquor pines, and lessens all the while".

5. LASTLY, I shall place the CUMBROUS, which moves heavily under a load of metaphors, and draws after it a long train of words; and the BUSKIN, or stately, frequently and with great felicity mixed with the former. For as the first is the proper engine to

In which Felton's superficial Dissertation on the Classics is written, who is very fearful to be thought a scholar, and makes an apology for quoting a common piece of Latin.-Warton.

2 Blackm. Job, p. 26. 3 Ibid. p. 23.

4 Denn.-Warburton.

5 Anon. Tons. Misc. part vi. p. 224.-Warburton.

6 This is the fault of two eminent writers, who at the same time abound in transcendent beauties, and whom for that reason it is less invidious to mention, Thomson and Johnson; and I fear even Milton has furnished an example :

"I hear the sound of words; their sense, the air
Dissolves, unjointed, ere it reach my ear."

Samson Agonistes, v. 176.-Warton.

depress what is high, so is the second to raise what is base and low to a ridiculous visibility. When both these can be done at once, then is the Bathos in perfection; as when a man is set with his head downward and his breech upright, his degradation is complete: one end of him is as high as ever, only that end is the wrong one. Will not every true lover of the profund be delighted to behold the most vulgar and low actions of life exalted in the following manner?

Who knocks at the door?

For whom thus rudely pleads my loud-tongued gate,
That he may enter ?·

See who is there?

Advance the fringed curtains of thy eyes,
And tell me who comes yonder.-

Shut the door.

The wooden guardian of our privacy

Quick on its axle turn.-8

7

Bring my clothes.

Bring me what Nature, tailor to the bear,
To man himself denied. She gave me cold,
But would not give me clothes.

Light the fire.

Bring forth some remnant of Promethean theft,
Quick to expand th' inclement air, congeal'd
By Boreas' rude breath.

Snuff the candle.

Yon luminary amputation needs,

Thus shall you save its half-extinguish'd life.

7 Temp.-Warburton.

8 Aristophanes in the Frogs, ver. 465, has a strange expression, yevσaι rñs dúρaç, taste the door; knock gently at it.-Warton.

Open the letter.
9

Wax! render up thy trust.

Uncork the bottle, and chip the bread...

Apply thine engine to the spungy

door,

Set Bacchus from his glassy prison free,
And strip white Ceres of her nut-brown coat'.

CHAPTER XIII.

A PROJECT FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE BATHOS.

THUS have I, my dear countrymen, with incredible pains and diligence discovered the hidden sources of the Bathos, or, as I may say, broke open the abysses of this great deep. And having now established good and wholesome laws, what remains but that all true moderns with their utmost might do proceed to put the same in execution? In order whereto, I think I shall in the second place highly deserve of my country, by proposing such a scheme, as may facilitate this great end.

As our number is confessedly far superior to that of the enemy, there seems nothing wanting but unanimity among ourselves. It is therefore humbly offered, that all and every individual of the Bathos do enter into a firm association, and incorporate into one regular body, whereof every member, even the meanest, will some

9 Theo. Double Falsehood.-Warburton.

1 It ought not to be concealed for the singularity of the fact, that several of the above examples given of the profund, which are marked Anon. Mr. Pope took from the Tragedy and Epic Poem, which he wrote when a child, and committed to the flames when he came to years of discretion.-Warburton.