daily come forth, to know to what kind to refer, and with what authors to compare them.

1. The flying fishes: Thefe 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 Swallows are authors that are eternally fkimming and fluttering up and down, but all their agility is employed to catch flies. L. T. W. P. Lord H.

3. The ofriches are fuch, whofe heaviness rarely permits 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 fast. 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 feem their own. W. B. W. H. C. C. the Rev.

D. D.

5. The didappers are authors that keep themfelves long out of fight, under water, and come up! now and then where you leaft expected them. L. W. G. D. Efq; and the Hon. Sir W. Y,

6. The porpoifes are unwieldy and big; they put all their numbers into a great turmoil and tempeft, but whenever they appear in plain light (which is feldom), they are only fhapeless and ugly monfters. I. D. C. G. I. O.

7. the frogs are fuch as can neither walk nor fly, but can leap and bound to admiration: they live generally in the bottom of a ditch, and make a great noife whenever they thrust their heads àbove water. E. W. 1. M. Efq; T. D. Gent. 8. The eels are obfcure authors, that

wrap them

felves 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 Hon. E. of S.

These are the chief characteristics of the Bathor, and in each of these kinds we have the comfort to be bleffed with fundry and manifold choice fpirit in this our island.

CHAP. VII.

Of the Profound, when it confifts in the thought.

WI

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 objects; to which it may be added, that vulgar converfation will greatly contribute. There is no queftion but the garret, or the printer's boy may often be difcerned in the compofitions made in fuch scenes and company and much of Mr Curl himself has been infenfibly infused into the works of his learned writers.

:

The phyfician, by the ftudy and infpection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the fcience; and in like fort fhould our author accuftom and exercife 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

lukewarm heads imagine they may be fafe by temporizing between the extremes), that where there is not a triticalness or mediocrity in the thought, it can never be funk into the genuine and perfect 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 spirit, which we admire and stare at. For instance, in that ingenious piece on a lady's drinking the Bath wa

ters:

She drinks! fhe 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 ftream at once both cools and burns *.

What can be more eafy and unaffected than the diction of thefe verfes? 'Tis the turn of thought alone, and the variety of imagination, that charm and surprise us. And when the fame lady goes into the bath, the thought (as in juftness it ought) goes ftill deeper.

Venus beheld her 'midft her crowd of flaves, And thought herself just risen from the waves +.

How much out of the way of common fense is this reflection of Venus, not knowing herself from the lady?

Of the fame nature is that noble mistake of a frighted stag in a full chace, who (faith the poet)

Hears his own feet, and thinks they found like

more;

And fears the hind feet will o'ertake the fore.

So aftonishing as thefe are, they yield to the fol lowing, which is profundity itself,

None but himself can be his parallel *.

Unless it may seem 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 mittake thee for her own,
Did not thy eyes proclaim thee not her fon.
There all the lightnings of thy mother thine,
And with a fatal brightnefs kill in thine.

Firft he is Cupid, then he is not Cupid; firft Venus would mistake him, then she 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 amidst a circle of critics,

Thus Phoebus thro' the zodiac takes his way, And amid monsters rises into day.

What a peculiarity is here of invention? The

*Theobald, Double Falsehood.

author's

author's pencil, like the wand of Circe, turns all into monsters at a stroke. 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 animals; much more might it be pleaded that a pair of 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 geniuses, what he found not monfters, he made fo.

CHAP. VIII.

Of the Profound, confifting in the circumftances, and of amplification and periphrafe in general.

HAT in a great measure diftinguishes o

WHA ther writers from ours, is their chufing and

feparating fuch circumftances in a defcription as ennoble or elevate the subject.

The circumftances which are moft natural are obvious, therefore not afonishing or peculiar. But thofe that are far-fetched, or unexpected, or hardly compatible, will furprise prodigioufly. Thefe therefore we must principally hunt out; but, above all, preferve a laudable prolixity, prefenting the whole and every fide at once of the image to view. For choice and diftinction are not only a curb to the fpirit, and limit the defcriptive faculty, but alfo leffen the book; which is frequently of the worst confequence of all to our author. VOL. V.

F

When