tween the extremes) that where there is not a triticalness or mediocrity in the thought, it can never be funk into the genuine and perfect bathos by the most elaborate low expreffion: it can, at most, be only carefully obfcured, or metaphorically debased. But, it is the thought alone that ftrikes, and gives the whole that fpirit, which we admire and ftare at. For inftance, in that ingenious piece on a lady's drinking the bath-waters:

*

She drinks! fhe drinks! behold the matchless dame! To her 'tis water, but to us 'tis flame:

Thus fire is water, water fire by turns,
And the fame ftream at once both cools and burns.

What can be more eafy and unaffected, than the diction of these verses? it is the turn of thought alone, and the variety of imagination, that charm and furprize us. And when the fame lady goes into the bath, the thought (as in juftness it ought) goes ftill deeper:

‡ Venus beheld her, 'midft her crowd of flaves, And thought herself just risen from the waves.

* Anon.

+ Idem. L 4

How

How much out of the way of common fenfe is this reflection of Venus, not knowing herself from the lady?

Of the fame nature is that noble mistake of a frighted ftag in a full chace, who (faith the poet.)

Hears his own feet, and thinks they found like more; And fears the bind-feet will o'ertake the fore,

So aftonishing as these are, they yield to the following, which is profundity itfelf,

* None but himself can be bis parallel.

Unless it may seem borrowed from the thought of that mafter of a fhow in Smithfield, who writ in large letters over the picture of his elephant.

This is the greatest elephant in the world, except bimfelf.

However our next inftance is certainly an original. Speaking of a beautiful infant, So fair thou art, that if great Cupid be A child, as poets fay, fure thou art be,

Theobald, Double Falfhood.

Fair Venus would mistake thee for her own,
Did not thy eyes proclaim thee not her fon.
There all the lightnings of thy mother's shine,
And with a fatal brightness kill in thine.

First he is Cupid, then he is not Cupid; firft Venus would mistake 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 amidft a circle of criticks,

Thus Phœbus through the zodiack 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 monfters 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 stand 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 monsters: there were only the centaur and the maid,

that

that could be esteemed out of nature. But what of that? with a boldness peculiar to thefe daring genius's, what he found not monsters, he made fo.

CHAP. VIII.

Of the profund, confifting in the circumftances: and of amplification and periphrafe in general.

WHA
HAT in a great measure diftin-

guishes other writers from ours, is

their chufing and feparating fuch circumftances in a description, as ennoble or elevate the fubject.

The circumftances, which are most natural, are obvious, therefore not aftonishing or peculiar: but thofe, that are far-fetched or unexpected, or hardly compatible, will furprize prodigiously. These therefore we muft principally hunt out; but above all preferve a laudable prolixity; presenting the whole and every fide at once of the image to view. For choice and diftinction are not only a curb to the spirit, and limit the descriptive faculty, but alfo leffen the

book;

book; which is frequently the worft confequence of all to our author.

Job fays in fhort, he washed his feet in butter; a circumftance fome poets would have foftened, or paft 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 mect,
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 thriv

ing fo well gave fo much milk, 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 circumstances.

+ 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.

Blackm. Job, p. 133. + Pr. Arth. p. 89.

Could