Interdum scopulos avulsaque viscera montis (I beg pardon of the gentle English reader, and such of our writers as understand not Latin.) Lo! how is this taken down by our British poet, by the single happy thought of throwing the mountain into a fit of the colic: Etna, and all the burning mountains, find Their kindled stores with inbred storms of wind Horace, in search of the sublime, struck his head against the stars'; but Empedocles, to fathom the profund, threw himself into Etna. And who but are perhaps the only two in Virgil that may be called bombast and supertragical, οὐ τραγικά, says Longinus, but παρατράγῳδα. Perhaps we have not in our language a more striking example of true turgid expression, and genuine fustian and bombast, than in the following lines of Nat. Lee's Alexander the Great, who is introduced saying: "When Glory, like the dazzling eagle, stood Perch'd on my beaver in the Granic flood; When Fortune's self my standard trembling bore, And I myself appear'd the leading God!" Is it to be conceived that Dr. Warburton affirmed, in a long note on the First Epistle of Horace, b. ii. that "these six lines contain not only the most sublime, but the most judicious imagery that poetry could conceive or paint?" I thought that a note which contained so outrageous a paradox, and so totally inconsistent with true taste and solid judgment, ought not to be retained in this edition.-Warton. 3 Pr. Arthur, p. 75.-Warburton. 4 Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.-Warburton. And so did the writer of the following lines, in a well-known tragedy: "Should the fierce North, upon his frozen wings, Bear him aloft above the wondering clouds, And seat him in the Pleiads' golden chariot, Thence should my fury drag him down to tortures.”—Warlon. would imagine our excellent modern had also been there, from this description? Imitation is of two sorts: the first is when we force to our own purposes the thoughts of others; the second consists in copying the imperfections or blemishes of celebrated authors. I have seen a play professedly writ in the style of Shakespear; wherein the resemblance lay in one single line: And so good morrow t'ye, good master Lieutenants. And sundry poems in imitation of Milton, where, with the utmost exactness, and not so much as one exception, nevertheless was constantly nathless, embroider'd was broider'd, hermits were eremites, disdain'd was 'sdeign'd, shady umbrageous, enterprize emprize, pagan paynim, pinions pennons, sweet dulcet, orchards orchats, bridge-work pontifical; nay, her was hir, and their was thir, through the whole poem. And in very deed, there is no other way by which the true modern poet could read, to any purpose, the works of such men as Milton and Shakespear. It may be expected, that like other Critics, I should next speak of the Passions. But as the main end and principal effect of the Bathos is to produce tranquillity of mind, (and sure it is a better design to promote sleep than madness,) we have little to say on this subject. Nor will the short bounds of this discourse allow us to treat at large of the emollients and opiates of poesy, of the cool, and the manner of producing it, or the methods used by our authors in managing the passions. I shall but transiently remark, that nothing contributes so much to the cool, as the use of wit in 5 A line of his friend Rowe.-Warton. 6 He alluded particularly to Philips's Cyder, of which he often expressed a strong disapprobation, and particularly on account of these antiquated words. He often quoted the following line as not English: "Administer their tepid genial airs." Cyder, b. ii.-Warton. expressing passion. The true genius rarely fails of points, conceits, and proper similes on such occasions. This we may term the pathetic epigrammatical, in which even puns are made use of with good success. Hereby our best authors have avoided throwing themselves or their readers into any indecent transports. But as it is sometimes needful to excite the passions of our antagonist in the polemic way, the true students in the law have constantly taken their methods from low life, where they observed, that to move anger, use is made of scolding and railing; to move love, of bawdry; to beget favour and friendship, of gross flattery; and to produce fear, of calumniating an adversary with crimes obnoxious to the State. As for shame, it is a silly passion, of which as our authors are incapable themselves, so they would not produce it in others. CHAPTER X. OF TROPES AND FIGURES AND FIRST OF THE VARIEGATING, CONFOUNDING, AND REVERSING FIGURES. BUT we proceed to the figures. We cannot too earnestly recommend to our authors the study of the abuse of speech. They ought to lay it down as a principle, to say nothing in the usual way, but (if possible) in the direct contrary. Therefore the figures must be so turned, as to manifest that intricate and wonderful cast of head which distinguishes all writers of this kind; or (as I may say) to refer exactly the mould in which they were formed, in all its inequalities, cavities, obliquities, odd crannies, and distortions. It would be endless, nay, impossible, to enumerate all such figures'; but we shall content ourselves to range the principal, which most powerfully contribute to the Bathos, under three classes: I. The variegating, confounding, or reversing tropes and figures. II. The magnifying; and III. The diminishing. We cannot avoid giving to these the Greek or Roman names; but in tenderness to our countrymen and fellow-writers, many of whom, however exquisite, are wholly ignorant of those languages, we have also explained them in our mother tongue. I. Of the first sort, nothing so much conduces to the Bathos, as the CATACHRESIS. A master of this will say, Mow the beard, Shave the grass, Pin the plank, Nail my sleeve. From whence results the same kind of pleasure to the mind, as to the eye when we behold Harlequin trimming 7 Another figure which greatly contributes to the Bathos might here be added, which Longinus, in his third section, calls the Parenthyrsus; a kind of violence and emotion, ill-timed and out of season, and disproportioned to the subject; into which good writers, nay Horace himself, is said to have fallen. When he says, that “even as the most superb and useful monuments of human skill and regal magnificence, the making new ports, the draining of marshes, the altering the course of rivers, the building moles, and other vast and expensive works, alter and decay, so do words and current expressions : "Debemur morti nos nostraque— -Mortalia facta peribunt, Nedum sermonum stet honos et gratia vivax." "The objects by which this decay of words is illustrated are too large and important for the occasion." HOR. Art of Poetry, 1. 63. See Blondell's Comparison of Horace and Pindar.-Warton. On this it may be observed, that the dignity and importance of language are not inferior to the most magnificent and durable works of human industry, and can only in a false estimate be diminished by the comparison. himself with a hatchet, hewing down a tree with a razor, making his tea in a caldron, and brewing his ale in a tea-pot, to the incredible satisfaction of the British spectator. Another source of the Bathos is THE METONYMY, the inversion of causes for effects, of inventors for inventions, &c. Lac'd in her cosins new appear'd the bride, 9 A bubble-boy and tompion' at her side, And with an air divine her colmar2 plied : THE SYNECHDOCHE, which consists in the use of a part for the whole. You may call a young woman sometimes pretty-face and pigs-eyes, and sometimes snotty-nose and draggle-tail. Or of accidents for persons; as a lawyer is called split-cause, a tailor prick-louse, &c. Or of things belonging to a man, for the man himself; as a sword-man, a gown-man, a T-m-t-d-man; a white-staff, a turnkey, &c. THE APOSIOPESIS. An excellent figure for the ignorant, as, "What shall I say?" when one has nothing to say: or "I can no more," when one really can no more. Expressions which the gentle reader is so good as never to take in earnest. THE METAPHOR 1. The first rule is to draw it from the lowest things, which 9 Tweezer case. 1 Watch. 8 Stays. 2 Fan. 3 A sort of periwig: all words in use in this present year, 1727.-Pope. These five lines, and the two at the bottom of p. 254, are quoted from his own youthful poems; as indeed are most of those marked anonymous. See also note on p. 239.-Warton. It were to be wished that all the critical opinions of Dr. Johnson were |