God will not be my advocate,

My caufe to manage or debate.

In the following Lines he is a GOLDBEATER. • Who the rich metal beats, and then, with care, Unfolds the golden leaves, to gild the fields of air.

THEN A FULLER.

th' exhaling reeks that fecret rife,

Born on rebounding fun-beams through the skies,
Are thicken'd, wrought, and whiten'd, till they grow
A heav'nly fleece.

A MERCER, OR PACKER.

Didft thou one end of air's wide curtain hold,
And help the Bales of Ether to unfold;

Say, which cerulian pile was by thy hand unroll'd?

A BUTLER.

He measures all the drops with wondrous skill,
Which the black clouds, his floating Bottles, fill.

r

S

P Blackm. p. 181. 9 P. 18. P. 174. P. 131.

AND

W.

It is remarkable that Swift highly commends Blackmore in more than one place; from whom Dr. Johnson strangely afferts that Pope might have learnt the art of reafoning in verfe, exemplified in the Poem on Creation; but Ambrofe Philips related that Blackmore, as he proceeded in this poem, communicated it from time to time to a club of wits, his affociates, and that every man contributed as he could, either improvement or correction; fo that there are perhaps no where in the book thirty lines together that now fland as they were originally written.

AND A BAKER.

* God in the wilderness his table spread, And in his airy Ovens bak'd their bread.

Blackm. Song of Mofes, p. 218.

W.

CHAP. VI.

OF THE SEVERAL KINDS OF GENIUS'S IN THE PRO

FUND, AND THE MARKS AND CHARACTERS OF EACH.

I

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 thefe 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 a due share of praise in inferior kinds. Many painters, who could never hit a nose or an eye, have with felicity copied a small-pox, or been admirable at a toad or a red-herring. And

feldom

feldom are we without genius's for Still-life, which they can work up and stiffen with incredible accuracy.

An univerfal Genius rifes not in an age; but when he rises, 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 copier 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, reasoning from the affinity there appears between Arts and Sciences, I doubt not, but an active catcher of butterflies, a careful and fanciful patterndrawer, an industrious collector of fhells, a laborious and tuneful bagpiper, or a diligent breeder of tame rabbits, might severally excel in their respective parts of the Bathos.

I fhall range these 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 compare them.

1. The

"In a fine paffage of the tenth book: "Germanicum Auguftum ab inftitutis ftudiis deflexit cura terrarum; parumque diis vifum eft effe cum maximum poetarum."

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 Swallows 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 Oftridges are fuch, whofe heaviness rarely permits them to raise themselves from the ground; their wings are of no use 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 such a hoarse odd voice, as makes them seem their own. W. B. W. H. 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 least expected them. L. W. G.D. Efq. The Hon. Sir W. Young.

6. The Porpoifes are unwieldly and big; they put all their numbers into a great turmoil and tempest, but whenever

* This was the chapter which gave so much offence, and excited fuch loud clamours against our author by his introduction of these initial letters, which he in vain afferted were placed at random, and meant no particular writers; which was not believed. Thefe initial letters cannot now be authentically filled up.

whenever they appear in plain light (which is feldom) they are only shapeless 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 noise whenever they thrust their heads above water. E. W. I. M. Efq. T. D. Gent.

8. The Eels are obfcure authors, that wrap themfelves 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 pastoral writers, delight much in gardens: they have for the most part a fine embroidered Shell, and underneath it, a heavy lump. A. P. W. B. L. E. The Right Hon. E. of S.

These are the chief Characteristicks of the Bathos, and in each of these kinds we have the comfort to be bleffed with fundry and manifold choice Spirits in this our island.