Quaere, What are the glittering turrets of a man's head?

9 Upon the shore, as frequent as the fand,

To meet the Prince, the glad Dimetians ftand.

Quaere, Where thefe Dimetians ftood? and of what fize they were? Add alfo to the Jargon fuch as the following.

'Deftruction's empire fhall no longer laft,
And Defolalion lie for ever waste.

Here Niobe, fad mother, makes her moan,,
And feems converted to a flone in ftone.

But for Variegation, nothing is more ufeful than

3. THE PARANOMASIA, OR PUN 3,

where a Word, like the tongue of a jackdaw, fpeaks twice as much by being fplit: As this of Mr. Dennis 4,

Bullets that wound, like Parthians, as they fly; or this excellent one of Mr. Welfted3,

3

Behold the Virgin lye

Naked, and only cover'd by the Sky.

Pr. Arthur, p. 157. Job, p. 89. T. Cook, Poems.

W.

An happy reading of Atterbury vindicates Milton from degrading

his ftyle by a very vile pun often quoted:

"And brought into this world, a world of woe."

Atterbury would point it thus:

And brought into this world (a world of woe)"

in a parenthesis, and putting the repeated word in appofition to the former.

Poems, 1693, p. 13. 6 Welfted, Poems, Acon and Lavin. · W,

To which thou may'st add,

To fee her beauties no man needs to stoop,
She has the whole Horizon for her hoop.

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 herself appear out of size, by hiding a young princess

under her clothes.

3

8

While the kind nymph changing her faultlefs fhape, Becomes unhandfome, handfomely to fcape.

On the Maids of Honour in mourning:

Sadly they charm, and difmally they please.

9 His eyes fo bright

Let in the object and let out the light.

2

The Gods look pale to fee us look fo red.
The Fairies and their Queen
In mantles blue came tripping o'er the green.

All nature felt a reverential fhock,

The fea flood fill to fee the mountains rock.

6 It were to be wished our author himself had not been so very fond of this figure; of all others, if too often repeated, the most tirefome and difgufting. See what is faid of this figure before in vol. iii. of this edition.

7 Waller. 8 Steel on Queen Mary. 9 Quarles.
Lee, Alex. Phil. Paft. 3 Blackm, Job, p. 176.

W.

1

CHAP. XI.

THE FIGURES CONTINUED: OF THE MAGNIFYING AND DIMINISHING FIGURES.

A GEN

GENUINE Writer of the Profound will take care never to magnify an object without clouding it at the fame time: His thought will appear in a true mist, and very unlike what is in nature. It muft always be remembered that darkness is an effential quality of the Profound, 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,

1. THE HYPERBOLE, OR IMPOSSIBLE 4.

For inftance, of a Lion;

5 He roar'd fo loud, and look'd fo wondrous grim, His very fhadow durft not follow him.

Of a lady at Dinner.

The filver whitenefs that adorns thy neck,
Sullies the plate, and makes the napkin black.

4 Into which even the great Corneille has fometimes fallen, and that too even in his Cinna; much more when he copies the extravagancies of Guillam de Caftro, in his Cid. The Spanish writers abound in these abfurdities; and indeed there are many such in Rotrou and in Ronfard.

⚫ Vet. Aut.

W.

6

Of the fame.

Th' obfcureness of her birth
Cannot eclipfe the luftre of her eyes,
Which make her all one light.

Of a Bull-baiting.

Up to the Stars the fprawling maftives fly,
And all new monfters to the frighted fky.

Of a scene of Mifery.

Behold a fcene of mifery and woe!

Here Argus foon might weep himself quite blind,
Ev'n though he had Briareus' hundred hands
To wipe thofe hundred eyes.

And that modest request of two absent lovers:

Ye Gods! annihilate but Space and Time,
And make two lovers happy.

II. 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 Magnyfying may be referred the following, which are fo excellently modern that we have yet no name for them. In defcribing a country prospect,

I'd call them mountains, but can't call them fo,
For fear to wrong them with a name too low;
While the fair vales beneath fo humbly lie,
That even humble feems a term too high.

Theob. Double Falfhood. "Blackm. 7 Anon. * Anon. W.

III. The third Clafs remains, of the Diminishing Figures: And 1. the ANTICLIMAX, where the fecond line drops quite short of the first, than which nothing creates greater furprize.

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 Dalhouffy the great God of War,
Lieutenant Colonel to the Earl of Mar.

On the Valour of the English.

'Nor Art nor Nature has the force
To top its steady courfe,

Nor Alps nor Pyrenaens keep it out,
Nor fortify'd Redoubt.

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 prefented with fomething low, or quite ridiculous. A furprize resembling that of a curious perfon in a cabinet of Antique Statues, who beholds on the pedeftal the names of Homer, or Cato; but looking up, finds Homer without a head, and nothing to be seen of Cato but his privy-member. Such are thefe lines of a Leviathan at fea.

His motion works, and beats the oozy mud,
And with its flime incorporates the flood,

2

• Waller. Anon, Den. on Namur. Blackm. Job, p. 197. W.