ture, and unaffifted with an habitual, nay, laborious pe culiarity of thinking, could arrive at images fo wonderfully low and unaccountable. The great author, from whofe 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 fhare of praise in inferior kinds. Many painters, who could never hit a nofe or an eye, have, with a felicity, copied a final pox, or been admirable at a toad or a red-herring and feldom are we without geniuses for fill-life, which they can work up and ftiffen with incredible accuracy,

or the ancients.

An univerfal genius rifes not in an age; but when he rifes, 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 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, reafoning from the af finity there appears between arts and sciences, I doubt not, but an active catcher of butterflies, a careful and fanciful pattern drawer, an induftrious collector of fhells, a labo rious and tuneful bag piper, or a diligent breeder of tame rabbits, might feverally excel in their relpective parts of the bathos.

I fhall range thefe confined and lefs copious geniuses 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 flying fishes: these are writers, who now and: then rife upon their fins, and fly out of the profound; but their wings are foon dry, and they drop down to the bottom. G. S. A. H. C. G.

2. The fwallows are authors, that are eternally skim• ming and fluttering up and down, but all their agility is employed to catch flies. L. T. W. P. Lord. H.

3. The oftriches are fuch, whofe heaviness rarely per-mits them to raise themselves from the ground;

their

wings are of no ufe 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 fuch a hoarfe odd voice, as makes them seem their own. W. B. W. S. C C the Rev. 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. Elqithe Hon. Sir W. Y.

The porpoifes are unwieldly and big; they put all their numbers into a great turmoil and tempelt, but whenever they appear in plain light (which is feldom), they are only fhapelefs and ugly monsters. 1. D. C. G. I O.

7. The frogs are fuch, as can neither walk nor flv, but can leap and bound to admiration: they live general. ly in the bottom of a ditch, and make a great_noile, whenever they thruft their heads above water. E. W. I, M. Efq; T. D. Gent

8. The eels are obfcare authors, that wrap themselves 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 paftoral writers, delight much in gardens: they have, for the most part, a fine embroidered fhell, and underneath it a heavy lump. A, P. W. B. L. E. the Right Honour. able E. of S.

These are the chief characteristics of the bathos, and in each of thefe kinds we have the comfort to be bieffed with fundry and manifold choice fpirits in this our island.

CHAP. VII.

Of the profound, when it confifts in the thought.

W

E have already laid down the principles upon which our author is to proceed, and the manner of forming his thought by familiarizing his mind to the lowest cbjects; to which, it may be added, that vulgar converfation will greatly contribute, There is no quefti

on, but the garret, or the printer's boy, may often be difcerned in fuch compofitions made in fuch fcenes and company; and much of Mr Curl himself has been infenfibly infufed into the works of his learned writers.

The phyfician, by the study and inspection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the fcience; and in like fort fhould our author accufton 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 safe by temporizing between the extremes), that where there is not a triticalnefs or mediocrity in the thought, it can never be funk into the genuine and perfet bathos by the most elaborate low expreffion it can, at most, be only carefully obfcured, or metaphorically debafed. But, it is the thought alone that strikes, and gives the whole that fpirit, which we admire aud ftare at. For instance, in that ingenious piece on a lady's drink. ing the bath waters :

She drinks

he drinks! behold the matchless dame ! To her 'tis water, but to us 'tis flame:

Thus fire is water, water fire by turns,

And the fame fream at once both cools and burns*.

What can be more eafy and unaffected, than the diction of these verfes? it is the turn of thought alone, and the variety of imagination, that charm and furprise 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 herfelt just rifen from the waves t

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 a full chace, who (faith the poet,)

• Anon.

Idem.

Hears

Hears his own feet, and thinks they found like more; And fears the hind fest will o'ertake 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 fhow 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 inftance 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 they eyes proclaim thee not her fon.
There all the lightnings of thy mother fhine,
And with a fatal brightness kill in thine.

First he is Cupid, then he is not Cupid; firft Venus would mistake him, then fhe would not mistake him; next his eyes are his mother's, and laftly they are not his mother's, but his own.

Another author, defcribing a poet, that shines forth a midst a circle of critics,

Thus Phebus thro' 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 ftopping at minute confiderations: in vain might the ram, the bull, the goat, the lion, the crab, the scorpion, the fishes, all stand in his way, as mere natural

* Theobald, Double Falfhood.

f animals: much more might it be pleaded, that a pair o' fcales, an old man, and two innocent children, were no monsters: there were only the centaur and the maid, that could be efteemed out of nature. But what of that? with a boldness peculiar to thefe daring geniules, what he found not monsters, le made so.

CHAP. VIII.

Of the profund, confifing in the circumftarces: and of amplification and periphrale in general.

W

HAT in a great measure diftinguishes other writ ers from ours, is their chufing and feparating fuch circumstances in a defcription, as ennoble or elevate the fubject.

The circumftances, which are most natural, are obvious, therefore not aflonishing or peculiar; but thofe that are far-fetched or unexpected, or hardly compatible, will furprize prodigioufly. Thefe therefore we muft principally hunt out; but above all preferve a laudable prolixity; prefenting the whole and every fide at once of the i mage to view. For choice and diftinction are not only a curb to the fpirit, and limit the defcriptive faculty, but also leffen the book; which is frequently the worst confequence of all to our author.

a cir.

Job fays in fhort, he washed his feet in butter; comftauce fome poets would have foftened, or paft over: now, hear how this butter is fpread out by the great ge

nius.

With teats diffended with their milky flore,
Such uum'rous lowing herds, before my door,
Their painful burthen to unload did meet,
That we with butter might have wash'd our feet*.

How cautious and particular! "He had," fays our author, "fo many herds, which herds thrived fo well, "and thriving fo well gave fo much milk, and that milk