daw, fpeaks twice as much by being fplit: as this of Mr. Dennis, Bullets, that wound, like Parthians as they fly §: or this excellent one of Mr. Welfted, Behold the virgin lye. Naked, and only cover'd by the sky. To which thou may'ft add, To fee her beauties no man needs to floop, 4. The ANTITHESIS, or SEE-SAW, whereby contraries and oppofitions are balanced in fuch a way, as to caufe a reader to remain fufpended between them to his exceeding delight and recreation. Such are these on a lady, who made herfelf appear out of fize by hiding a young princefs under her cloaths. * While the kind nymph changing ber faultless shape Becomes unhandsome, handsomely to scape. On the maids of honour in mourning. § Poems 1693, P. 13. Lavin. Waller. Welted, poems, Acon & + Steel, on Queen Mary. His eyes fo bright Let in the object and let out the light. The Gods look pale to fee us look fo red. In mantles blue came tripping o'er the green. CHA P. XI. The figures continued: of the magnifying and diminishing figures. A Genuine writer of the profund will take care never to magnify any object without clouding it at the fame time: his thought will appear in a true mift, and very unlike what is in nature. It must always be remember'd, that darkness is an effential quality of the profund, or if there chance to be a glimmering, it must be, as Milton expreffes it, No light, but rather darkness vifible. The chief figure of this fort is, The HYPERBOLE, or impoffible. Quarles. Blackm. Job, p. 176. . + Phil. Paft. For For inftance, of a Lion. * He roar'd fo loud, and look'd fo wondrous grim His very shadow durft not follow him. Of a Lady at Dinner. The filver whiteness that adorns thy neck, Of the fame. The + obfcureness of her birth Cannot eclipfe the luftre of her eyes, Of a Bull-baiting. Up to the ftars the fprawling maftives fly, And add new monfters to the frighted fky §. Of a Scene of Mifery. Bebold a fcene of mifery and woe! Here Argus foon might weep himself quite blind, Ev'n tho' he had Briareus' hundred hands To wipe his hundred eyes * Vet. Aut. § See p. 115. + Theob. Double Falfhood. Blackm And And that modest request of two absent lovers: Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time, 3. The PERIPHRASIS, which the moderns call the circumbendibus, whereof we have given examples in the ninth chapter, and fhall again in the twelfth. To the fame clafs of the magnifying may be referred the following, which are fo excellently modern, that we have yet no name for them. In defcribing a country profpect, *I'd call them mountains, but can't call them fa, III. The laft clafs remains; of the diminishing 1. the ANTICLIMAX, and figures: where the fecond line drops quite fhort of the firft, than which nothing creates greater furprize. *Anon. On On the extent of the british arms. * Under the tropicks is our language spoke, And part of Flanders hath receiv'd our yoke. On a Warrior. + And thou Dalbouffy the great God of war, Lieutenant colonel to the Earl of Mar. On the Valour of the Englifb. + Nor art nor nature has the force Nor Alps nor Pyrenæans keep it out At other times this figure operates in a larger extent; and when the gentle reader is in expectation of fome great image, he either finds it furprizingly imperfect, or is presented with fomething low, or quite ridiculous: a furprize refembling that of a curious perfon in a cabinet of antique ftatues, who beholds on the pedeftal the names of Homer, or Cato; but looking up finds Homer without a head, and nothing to be feen of Cato but his *Anon. + Anon. + Denn, on Namur. |