All nature felt a reverential shock,

The fea stood still to fee the mountains rock *.

CHAP. XI.

The figures continued: of the magnifying and diminishing figures.

A

GENUINE writer of the profund will take care never to magnify any object without clouding it at the fame time: his thought will appear in a true mift, and very unlike what is in nature. It must always be remembered, that darkness is an effential quality of the pro fund, or if there chance to be a glimmering, it must be, as Milton exprefles it,

No light, but rather darkness vifible.

The chief figure of this fort is,

The HYPERBOLE, or impoffible.

For instance, of a lion.

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 thoy neck,
Sullies the plate, and makes the napkin black.

Of the fame.

The obfcureness of her birth

Cannot eclipfe the lure of her eyes,

Which make her all one light .

Of a bull-baiting.

Up to the ftars the fprauling maftives fly,
And add new monfiers to the frighted sky

་

Of a scene of misery.

Behold a fcene of mifery and woe!

Here Argos foon might weep himself quite blind,
Ev'n tho he had Briarius's hundred hands

To wipe his bundred eyes

*

And that modest request of two abfent lovers:

Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time,
And made two lovers happy.

3. The PERIPHRASIS, which the moderns call the circumbendibus, whereof we have given examples in the ninth chapter, and fhall again in the twelth.

To the fame clafs of the magnifying may be referred the following, which are so excellently modern, that we have yet no name for them. In defcribing a country profpect,

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 †•

III. The last clafs remains; of the diminishing, 1. The ANTICLIMAX, and figures: where the fecond line drops quite fhort of the firft, than which nothing creates greater furprize.

On the extent of the British arms.

Under the Tropics 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 Mur |}•

On the valour of the English.

Nor art nor nature has the force
To flop its feady course,

Nor Alps nor Pyrenæans 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 furprisingly imperfect, or is prefented with fomething low, or quite ridiculous a furprize refembling that of a curious perfon in a cabinet of antic ftatues, who beholds on the pedeltal the names of Ho mer, or Cato; but looking up finds Homer without a head, and nothing to be feen 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 lime incorporates the flood;
'Till allth' incumber'd, thick, fermenting fream
Does like one pot of boiling ointment feem.
Where'er he fwims, he leaves along the lake
Such frothy furrows, fuch a foamy track,
That all the waters of the deep appear
Hoary-with age, or grey with fudden fear t.

But perhaps even these are excelled by the enfuing.

Now the refifted flames and fiery fore,
By winds affaulted, in wide forges roar,
And raging feas flow down of melted ore.
Sometimes they hear long iron-bars remov'd,
And to and fro huge heaps of cynders fhov'd ‡.

2. The VULGAR.

is alfo a fpecies of the diminishing: by this a fpear flying into the air is compared to a boy whistling as he goes on

an errand.

* Denn. on Namur.

Blackm. Job, p. 197.

Prince Arthur, p. 157.

The

The mighty Stuffa threw a mally spear,

Which, with its errand pleas'd, fung through the air *.

A man raging with grief, to a mastiff dog,"

I cannot fifle this gigantic woe,

Nor on my raging grief a muzzle throw t.

and clouds big with water,to a woman in great neceffity.

Diftended with the waters in 'em pent,

The clouds hang deep in air, but hang unrent.

3. The INFANTINE.

This is, when a poet grows fo very fimple as to think and talk like a child. I fhall take my examples from the greatest mafter in this way: hear how he tondles like as mere ftammerer.

Little charm of placid mien,
Miniature of beauty's queen,
Hither, Britif mufe of mine,
Hither, all ye Græcian nine,"
With the lovely Graces three,
And your pretty nurfeling fee.

When the meadows next are feen,
Sweet enamel, white and green,

When again the lambkins play,
Pretty Sportlings full of May,

Then the neck fo white and round,
(Little neck with brilliants bound.)
And thy gentleness of mind,
(Gentle from a gentle kind.)

Hippy thrice, and thrice agen,
Happiest he of happy men, &c ‡.

+ Job, p. 41.

* Prince Arthur.
Amb. Philips on Mifs Cuzzona.

H 2

and

and the reft of thofe excellent lullabies of his compofi.

tian.

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

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

Hear how a bibe would reafon on his nurse's death,

That ever he could die! Oh most unkind!
To die, and leave poor Colinet behind t
And yet,why blame I her +?

With no lefs fimplicity docs he fuppofe, that shepher deffes tear their hair and beat their breafts at their own deaths:

Ye brighter maids, faint emblems of my fair,
With looks caft down, and with dishevel'd hair,
In bitter angnifh beat your breafls and moan
Her death untimely, as it were your own ‡.

4. The INANITY, or NOTHINGNESS.

Of this the fame author furnishes us with most beautiful inftances..

Ah filly I, more filly than my fheep,
(Which on the flow'ry plain I once did keep

To the grave fenate she did csunfel give,
(Which with aflonishment they did receive **).

He whom loud cannon could not terrify,
Falls (from the grandeur of his majesty ††).

Happy, merry as a king,

Sipping dewyou fip, and fing ‡‡.

Where you eafily perceive the nothingness of every fécond

verfe.