obscured, or metaphorically debased. But, it is 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: She drinks she drinks! behold the matchless dame! To her 'tis water, but to us 'tis flame: Thus fire is water, water fire by turns, And the same stream at once both cools and burns *. What can be more easy and unaffected, than the diction of these verses; it is the turn of thought alone, and the variety of imagination, that charm and surprise us. And when the same lady goes into the bath, the thought (as in justice it ought) goes still deeper: Venus beheld her, 'midst her crowd of slaves, And thought herself just risen from the waves †. How much out of the way of common sense is this reflection of Venus, not knowing herself from the lady? Of the same nature is that noble mistake of a frighted stag in a full chace, who, saith the poet Hears his own feet, and thinks they sound like more; So astonishing as these are, they yield to the following, which is profundity itself. None but himself can be his parallel t. Unless it may seem borrowed from the thought of that master 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. * Anon. + Idem. Theobald, Double Falshood. 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 say, sure thou art he. 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 describing a poet, that shines forth amid a circle of criticks, Thus Phoebus through the zodiack takes his way, What a peculiarity is here of invention! the author's pencil, like the wand of Circe, turns all into monsters at a stroke. A great genius takes things in the lump, without stopping at minute considerations: in vain might the ram, the bull, the goat, the lion, the crab, the scorpion, the fishes, all stand in its 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 esteemed out of nature. But what of that? with a boldness peculiar to these daring geniuses, what he found not monsters, he made so. CHAP. VIII. Of the profund, consisting in the circumstances: and of amplification and periphrase in general. WHAT in a great measure distinguishes other writers from ours, is their choosing and separating such circumstances in a description, as ennoble or elevate the subject. The circumstances, which are most natural, are obvious, therefore not astonishing or peculiar: but those, that are far-fetched or unexpected, or hardly compatible, will surprise prodigiously. These therefore we must principally hunt out; but above all preserve a laudable prolixity: presenting the whole and every side 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 lessen the book; which is frequently the worst consequence of all to our author. Job says in short, he washed his feet in butter; a circumstance some poets would have softened, or passed over: now hear how this butter is spread out by the great genius. With teats distended with their milky store, That we with butter might have wash'd our feet *. Blackm. Job, p. 133. How How cautious and particular!" he had (says our author) so many herds, which herds thrived so well, " and thriving so well gave so much milk, and that “milk produced so much butter, that, if he did not, "he might have washed his feet in it." The ensuing description of Hell is no less remarkable in the circumstances. In flaming heaps the raging ocean rolls, Could the most minute Dutch painter have been more exact? How inimitably circumstantial is this also of a war-horse! His eyeballs burn, he wounds the smoking plain, Of certain Cudgel-players. They brandish high in air their threat'ning staves, In which they fix their hazel weapon's end ‡. Who would not think the poet had past his whole life at wakes in such laudable diversions? since he teaches us how to hold, nay how to make a cudgel! Periphrase is another great aid to prolixity; being a diffused circumlocutory manner of expressing a known idea, which should be so mysteriously couched, as to give the reader the pleasure of guessing what it is, that the author can possibly mean; and a strange surprise, when he finds it. * Pr. Arth. p. 89.. † Anon. C 4 1 Pr. Arthur, p. 197. The The poet I last mentioned is incomparable in this figure. A waving sea of heads was round me spread, And still fresh streams the gazing d.luge fed *. Here is a waving sea of heads, which by a fresh stream of heads grows to be a gazing deluge of heads. You come at last to find, it means a great crowd. How pretty and how genteel is the following! Nature's confectioner- Whose suckets are moist alchymy: The still of his refining mould Minting the garden into gold †. What is this but a bee gathering honey? Little Syren of the stage, Empty warbler, breathing lyre, Wanton gale of fond desire, Tuneful mischief, vocal spell Who would think, this was only a poor gentlewoman, that sung finely? We may define amplification to be making the most of a thought: it is the spinning-wheel of the bathos, which draws out and spreads it into the finest thread. There are amplifiers, who can extend half a dozen thin thoughts over a whole folio; but for which, the tale of many a vast romance, and the substance of many a fair volume, might be reduced to the size of a primer. In the book of Job are these words, "Haft thou "commanded the morning, and caused the day-spring + Cleveland. Job, p. 78. to |