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CHAP. VII.

OF THE PROFUND, WHEN IT CONSISTS IN THE

THOUGHT.

WE

E have already laid down the Principles upon which our author is to proceed, and the manner of forming his Thoughts by familiarizing his mind to the lowest objects; to which it may be added, that Vulgar Converfation will greatly contribute. There is no question but the Garret or the Printer's boy may often be difcerned in the compofitions made in fuch scenes and company; and much of Mr. Curl himself has been infenfibly infused into the works of his learned writers.

The Physician, by the study and inspection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the fcience; 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 temperizing between the extremes) that where there is not a Triticalnefs or Mediocrity in the Thought, it can never

be

y It would be unpardonable not to cenfure fuch images and expreffions.

be funk into the genuine and perfect Bathos, by the most elaborate low Expreffion: It can, at moft, be only carefully obscured, or metaphorically debased. But 'tis the Thought alone that strikes, and gives the whole that spirit, which we admire and stare at. For instance, in that ingenious piece on a lady's drinking the Bath-waters:

a

She drinks! She drinks! Behold the matchlefs 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 easy and unaffected than the Diction of these verses? 'Tis 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 justness it ought) goes ftill deeper.

Venus beheld her, 'midft her croud of flaves,
And thought herself just rifen from the waves.

How

a Anon.

W.

Mr. Spence informed me that this paffage, and many other ridiculous ones, in this treatise, were quoted from our poet's own early pieces, particularly his epic poem, called Alcander. So fenfible of its own errors and imperfections is a mind truly great.

When Voltaire first brought on the stage his Mariamne, 1722, in which Herod gave her a cup of poison, the Parterre cried out, "La Reine boit," and the play was damned.

b Anon.

W.

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 full chase, who (faith the Poet)

Hears bis own feet, and thinks they found like more, And fears the hind feet will overtake the fore.

So aftonishing as thefe are, they yield to the following, which is Profundity itself,

↳ None but Himself can be his Parallel.

Unless it may feem borrowed from the Thought of that Mafter of a Show in Smithfield, who writ in large letters, over the picture of his elephant,

This is the greatest Elephant in the world, except Himself.

However our next instance 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 he.
Fair Venus would mistake thee for her own
Did not thy eyes proclaim thee not her fon.

Theobald, Double Falshood.'

There

W.

It is a little remarkable that this line of Theobald, which is thought to be the masterpiece of abfurdity, is evidently copied from a line of Seneca, in the Hercules Furens :

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There all the lightnings of thy Mother's fhine,
And with a fatal brightness kill in thine.

First he is Cupid, then he is not Cupid; first Venus would mistake him, then she would not mistake him; next his eyes are his Mother's, and lastly they are not his Mother's, but his own.

Another author, defcribing a Poet that fhines forth amidst a circle of Critics,

Thus Phoebus through the Zodiac 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 monsters at a ftroke. A great Genius takes things in the lump, without stopping at minute confiderations: In vain might the ram, the bull, the goat, the lion, the crab, the fcorpion, the fifhes, 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 could be éfteemed out of nature. But what of that? with a boldnefs peculiar to thefe daring genius's, what he found not monsters, he made fo.

CHAP. VIII.

OF THE PROFUND, CONSISTING IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, AND OF AMPLIFICATION AND PERIPHRASE IN GENERAL.

WHAT in great measure distinguishes other writers from ours, is their chufing and feparating fuch circumstances in a defcription as ennoble or elevate the subject.

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 must principally hunt out; but above all, preserve a laudable Prolixity; presenting the whole and every fide at once of the image to view. For Choice and Distinction are not only a curb to the spirit, and limit the descriptive faculty, but also leffen the book; which is frequently of the worft confequence of all to our author.

When Job fays in fhort, "He washed his feet in "butter," (a circumstance fome Poets would have foftened, or paffed over) now hear how this butter is spread out by the great Genius:

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With teats diftended with their milky ftore,
Such num❜rous lowing herds, before my door,

< Blackm. Job. p. 133.

Their

W.

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