When again the lambkins play,
Pretty Sportlings full of May,

Then the neck fo white and round,
(Little neck with brilliants bound.)

And thy gentleness of mind,
(Gentle from a gentle kind,) &c.

Happy thrice, and thrice agen,

Happiest be of happy men, &c.

and the reft of those excellent lullabies of his compofition.

How prettily he afks the sheep to teach him to bleat?

* Teach me to grieve with bleating moan, my sheep.

Hear how a babe would reafon on his nurfe's death.

That ever he could die! Oh most unkind!
To die, and leave poor Colinet behind !
And yet,—why blame I her ?

With no lefs fimplicity does he fuppofe, that fhepherdeffes tear their hair and beat their breafts at their own deaths:

Ye brighter maids, faint emblems of my fair, With looks caft down, and with dishevel'd hair, In bitter anguish beat your breasts, and moan Her death untimely, as it were your own.

4. The INANITY, of NOTHINGNESS. Of this the fame author furnishes us with most beautiful inftances.

*Ab filly I, more filly than my sheep,
(Which on the flow'ry plain I once did keep.)

+ To the grave Senate she could counsel give,
(Which with aftonishment they did receive.)

He whom loud cannon could not terrify, Falls (from the grandeur of his majesty.) § Happy, merry as a king,

Sipping dew.

-you fip, and fing.

Where you eafily perceive the nothingness of every fecond verse.

*The noise returning with returning light,

*The glories of proud London to furvey,
The fun himself fall rifeby break of day.

5. The EXPLETIVE,

admirably exemplified in the epithets of many authors.

Th' umbrageous fhadow, and the verdant green,
The running current, and odorous fragrance,
Chear my lone folitude with joyous gladness.

Or in pretty drawling words like these,

+ All men his tomb, all men his fons adore, And his fons fons, till there fhall be no more.

The rifing fun our grief did fee, The fetting fun did fee the fame. While wretched we remembred thee, O Sion, Sion, lovely name.

6. The MACROLOGY and PLEON ASM

are as generally coupled, as a lean rabbit with a fat one; nor is it a wonder, the fuperfluity of words and vacuity of fense being juft the fame thing. I am pleased

Autor Vet. ↑ T. Cook, Poems.

Ibid.

to

to fee one of our greatest adverfaries employ this figure.

§ The growth of meadows, and the pride of fields,
The food of armies, and support of wars,
Refufe of fwords, and gleanings of a fight,
Leffen his numbers, and contract his hoft.
Where'er his friends retire, or foes fucceed,
Cover'd with tempefts, and in oceans drown'd.

Of all which the perfection is

The TAUTOLOGY.

Break thro' the billows, and-divide the main. In Smoother numbers, and-in fofter verfe. Divide and part-the fever'd world-in two.

With ten thousand others equally mufical, and plentifully flowing through most of our celebrated modern poems.

$ Camp. ‡ Tons. Misc. 12° vol. iv. p. 291. 4th edit, Ibid, vol. vi. p. 121.

CHAP. XII.

Of expreffion, and the feveral forts of ftyle of the present age.

T

HE expreffion is adequate, when it is proportionably low to the profundity of the thought. It muft not be always grammatical, left it appear pedantic and ungentlemanly; nor too clear, for fear it become vulgar; for obfcurity bestows a caft of the wonderful, and throws an oracular dignity upon a piece which hath no meaning.

*

For example, fometimes use the wrong number; the fword and peftilence at once devours, inftead of devour. Sometimes the wrong cafe; and who more fit to footh the god than thee? inftead of thou. And rather than fay, Thetis faw Achilles weep, the beard him weep.

We must be exceeding careful in two things; firft, in the choice of low words: fecondly, in the fober and orderly way of ranging them. Many of our poets are

* Ti. Hom. II. i.

naturally