CHAP. VI.

Of the feveral kinds of genius's in the profund, and the marks, and characters of

each.

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 nature, and unaffifted with an habitual, nay laborious peculiarity of thinking, could arrive at images fo wonderfully low and unaccountable. The great author, from whose treasury we have drawn all these 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 à due fhare of praise in inferior kinds. Many painters, who could never hit a nofe or an eye, have with felicity copied a small-pox, or been admirable at a toad or a red-herring: and feldom are we without genius's for filllife, which they can work up and stiffen with incredible accuracy.

An

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 copyer after nature or the ancients. 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 affinithere appears between arts and sciences, I doubt not, but an active catcher of butterflies, a careful and fanciful patterndrawer, an induftrious collector of fhells, a laborious and tuneful bag-piper, or a diligent breeder of tame rabbits, might feverally excel in their refpective parts of the bathos.

ty

I fhall range thefe confined and lefs copious genius's 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 com1. The

pare them.

L

2

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

2. The fwallows 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, whofe heavinefs rarely permits them to raise themselves from the ground; their wings are of no ufe to lift them up, and their motion is between 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 reverend D. D.

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

6. The porpoifes are unweildy and big; they put all their numbers into a great turmoil

turmoil and tempeft, but whenever they appear in plain light (which is feldom) they are only fhapeless and ugly monsters.

I. D. C. G. I. O.

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 thruft 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 most part a fine embroider'd fhell, and underneath it a heavy lump. A. P. W. B. L. E. The right hon. E. of S.

These are the chief characteristics of the bathos, and in each of these kinds we have the comfort to be bleffed with fundry and manifold choice fpirits in this our ifland.

CHA P. VII.

Of the profund, when it confifts in the

WE

thought.

E have already laid down the principles, upon which our author is to proceed, and the manner 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 queftion, but the garret or the printer's boy may often be difcerned in the compofitions made in fuch fcenes and company; and much of Mr. Curl himself has been infenfibly infufed into the works of his learned writers.

The phyfician, by the study and inspection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the science; and in like fort fhould our author accuftom and exercise his imagination upon the dregs of nature,

This will render his thoughts truly and fundamentally low, and carry him many fathoms beyond mediocrity. For, certain it is (though fome lukewarm heads imagine they may be fafe by temporizing be

tween