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

Happiest he of happy men, &c.*

and the rest of those excellent Lullabies of his composition.

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

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

Hear how a babe would reason on his nurse's death:

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

With no less simplicity does he suppose that shepherdesses tear their hair and beat their breasts at their own deaths:

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

4. THE INANITY, OR NOTHINGNESS.

Of this the same author furnishes us with most beautiful instances:

Ah silly I, more silly than my sheep,

(Which on the flowery plain I once did keep.)*

To the
grave Senate she could counsel give,
(Which with astonishment 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 sip, and sing.§

The noise returning with returning light,

What did it?

Dispers'd the silence, and dispell'd the night.¶

You easily perceive the nothingness of every second verse:

The glories of proud London to survey,

The Sun himself shall rise—by break of day.||

5. THE EXPLETIVE,

admirably exemplified in the epithets of many authors:

Th' umbrageous shadow, and the verdant green, The running current, and the odorous fragrance, Cheer my lone solitude with joyous gladness.**

Or in pretty drawling words like these:

All men his tomb, all men his sons adore,
And his sons' sons, till there shall be no more.*

The rising sun our grief did see,

The setting sun did see the same, While wretched we remembered thee, O Sion, Sion, lovely name.†

6. THE MACROLOGY AND PLEONASM are generally coupled, as a lean rabbit with a fat one; nor is it a wonder, the superfluity of words, and vacuity of sense, being just the same thing. I am pleased to see one of our greatest adversaries employ this figure :

The growth of meadows, and the pride of fields,
The food of armies and support of wars,
Refuse of swords, and gleanings of a fight,
Lessen his numbers, and contract his host.

† Ibid.

Warburton.

* T. Cook, Poems. Even such pure writers as Catullus, Lucretius, and Horace, have sometimes been guilty of Pleonasms; of which there are examples in the Miscell. Observations of Jortin, p. 37, vol. ii. Of this sort of style Quintilian, as usual, speaks elegantly: "Ut corpora non robore sed valetudine inflantur; et recto itinere lapsi, plerumque divertunt. Erit ergo obscurior, quo quisque deterior."

Again, "Ut staturâ breves in digitos eriguntur, et plura infirmi minantur.-Ne oneretur tamen verbis multis; nam sit longa et impedita oratio, ut eam judices similem agmini totidem lixas habenti quot milites; in quo et numerus est duplex, nec duplum virium.” The six English lines here quoted are a severe stroke on Addison's Campaign. Warton.

Where'er his friends retire, or foes succeed,
Cover'd with tempests, 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 softer verse.†

Divide-and part-the sever'd world-in two.

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

Tons. Misc. 12mo. vol. iv. p. 291, 4th edition. Warburton.
Ibid, vol. vi. p. 121. Warburton.

CHAP. XII.

OF EXPRESSION, AND THE SEVERAL SORTS OF STYLE OF THE PRESENT AGE.

THE expression is adequate, when it is proportionably low to the profundity of the thought. It must not be always grammatical, lest it appear pedantic and ungentlemanly; nor too clear, for fear it become vulgar; for obscurity bestows a cast of the wonderful, and throws an oracular dignity upon a piece which hath no meaning.

For example, sometimes use the wrong number; the sword and pestilence at once devours; instead of devour.* Sometimes the wrong case; and who more fit to sooth the God than thee?† instead of thou. And rather than say: Thetis saw Achilles weep: she heard him weep.

We must be exceeding careful in two things: first, in the choice of low words: secondly, in the sober and orderly way of ranging them. Many of our poets are naturally blessed with this talent, insomuch that they are in the circumstance of that honest citizen, who had made prose all his life without knowing it. Let verses run in this man

+ Our author himself has more than once fallen into this fault, as hath been observed in the notes of this edition, and of which Dr. Lowth in his Grammar mentions many instances. Warton.