I shall only observe further, that this fort, whofe aim is to debafe, delights in the most homely expreffions, provincial idioms, and cant phrases.

THE fecond kind, confifting in the aggran disement of little things, which is by far the most splendid, and displays a foaring imagination, these lines of Pope will ferve to illuftrate: As Berecynthia, while her offspring vie In homage to the mother of the sky, Surveys around her in the bleft abode, An hundred fons, and every fon a god :

Not with lefs glory mighty Dulness crown'd,
Shall take thro' Grubtreet her triumphant round;
And her Parnaffus glancing o'er at once,
Behold a hundred fons, and each a dunce *.

This whole fimilitude is fpirited. The parent of the celeftials is contrafted by the daughter of night and chaos; heaven by Grubftreet; gods by dunces. Befides, the parody it contains on a beautiful paffage in Virgil, adds a particular luftre to it. This fpecies we may term the

Felix prole virum, qualis Berecynthia mater
Invehitur curru Phrygias turrita per urbes,
Læta deûm partu, centum complexa nepotes,

Omnes cœlicolas, omnes fupera alta tenentes. Eneis.

thrafonical,

thrafonical, or the mock-majeftic. It affects the moft pompous language, and fonorous phrafeology, as much as the other affects the reverse, the vileft and moft grovelling dialect.

I SHALL produce another example from the fame writer, which is, indeed, inimitably fine. It reprefents a lady employed at her toilet, attended by her maid, under the allegory of the celebration of fome folemn and religious ceremony. The paffage is rather long for a quotation, but as the omiffion of any part would be a real mutilation, I shall give it entire.

And now unveil`d, the toilet ftands display'd,
Each filver vafe in myftic order laid.

First, rob'd in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncover d, the cofmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glafs appears,
To that the bends, to that her eyes the rears;
Th' inferior prieftefs, at her altar's fide,
Trembling, begins the facred rites of pride;
Unnumber'd treasures opes at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear;
From each the nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddefs with the glittering spoil.
This cafket India's glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The tortoife here and elephant unite :

Transform'd to combs, the fpeckled and the white.
Here files of pins extend their fhining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet doux.

E 2

Now

Now awful beauty puts on all its arms,
The fair each moment rifes in her charms,
Repairs her fmiles, awakens every grace,
And calls forth all the wonders of her face;
Sees by degrees a purer blush arife,

And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes.

To this clafs alfo we must refer the application of grave reflections to mere trifles. For that great and serious are naturally affociated by the mind, and likewife little and trifling, is fufficiently evinced by the common modes of expreffion on thefe fubjects, used in every tongue. An oppofite inftance of fuch an application we have from Philips,

My galligafkins, that have long with flood
The winter's fury and encroaching frofts,
By time fubdued, (What will not time fubdue!)
An horrid chafm difclofe +.

Like to this, but not equal, is that of Young,

One day his wife, (for who can wives reclaim!)
Level'd her barbarous needle at his fame ‡.

To both the preceding kinds, the term burlefque is applied, but efpecially to the first.

Of the third fpecies of wit, which is by far the most multifarious, and which refults from

Rape of the Lock, Canto 1. + Splendid Shilling.

Univerfal Paffion.

what

what I may call the queernefs or fingularity of the imagery, I fhall give a few fpecimens that will ferve to mark fome of its principal varieties. To illuftrate all would be impoffible.

THE first I fhall exemplify, is where there is an apparent contrariety in the things the exhibits as connected. This kind of contraft we have in thefe lines of Garth,

Then Hydrops next appears amongst the throng;
Bloated and big the flowly fails along :

But like a mifer in excefs fhe's poor;

And pines for thirst amidst her watery store *.

The wit in thefe lines doth not fo much arife from the comparison they contain of the dropfy to a mifer, (which falls under the defcription that immediately fucceeds) as from the union of contraries they prefent to the imagination, poverty in the midft of opulence, and thirft in one who is already drenched in water.

A SECOND fort, is where the things compared are what with dialecticians would come under the denomination of difparates, being fuch as can be ranked under no common genus. Of this I fhall fubjoin an example from Young,

Health chiefly keeps an Atheist in the dark;

A fever argues better than a Clarke:

Let but the logic in his pulfe decay,

The Grecian he'll renounce, and learn to pray. Here, by implication, health is compared to a fophifter, or darkener of the understanding, a fever to a metaphyfical difputant, a regular pulfe to falfe logic, for the word logic in the third line is ufed ironically. In other words, we have here modes and fubftances, the affections of body, and the exercife of reafon ftrangely, but not infignificantly linked together; ftrangely, elfe the fentiment, however juft, could not be denominated witty, fignificantly, becaufe an unmeaning jumble of things incongruous would not be wit, but nonfenfe.

A THIRD variety in this fpecies fprings from confounding artfully the proper and the metaphorical fenfe of an expreffion. In this way, one will affign as a motive, what is difcovered to be perfectly abfurd, when but ever fo little attended to; and yet, from the ordinary meaning of the words, hath a fpecious appearance on a fingle glance. Of this kind you have an inftance in the fubfequent lines,

Univerfal Paffion.