CHAP. XII.

OF EXPRESSION, AND THE SEVERAL SORTS OF STYLE OF THE PRESENT AGE.

THE

HE Expreffion is adéquate, when it is proportionably low to the Profundity of the Thought. It must not be always Grammatical, left it appear pedantic and ungentlemanly; nor too clear, for fear it become vulgar; for obfcurity beftows a caft of the wonderful, and throws an oracular dignity upon a piece which hath no meaning.

For example, fometimes ufe the wrong Number; The Sword and Peftilence at once devours, inftead of devour. Sometimes the wrong Cafe; And who more fit to footh the God than thee? inftead of thou: And. rather than fay, Thetis faw Achilles weep, fhe heard him weep.

We must be exceeding careful in two things: first, in the Choice of low Words: fecondly, in the fober and orderly way of ranging them. Many of our Poets are naturally bless'd with this talent, infomuch that they are in the circumftance of that honeft Citizen, who had made Profe all his life without knowing it. Let verfes run in this manner, juft to be a vehicle to the words: (I take them from my laft cited author, who, though other wife by no means of our rank, feemed once in his life to have a mind to be fimple.)

7 Our author himself has more than once fallen into this faulty as hath been obferved in the notes of this edition, and of which Dr. Lowth in his Grammar mentions many inftances.

If not, a prize I will myself decree,
From him, or him, or else perhaps from thee.

full of days was he;

Two ages paft, he liv'd the third to fee.

The king of forty kings, and honour'd more
By mighty Jove than e'er was king before.

That I may know, if thou my pray'r deny.
The most defpis'd of all the Gods am I..

3 Then let my mother once be rul'd by me,
Though much more wife than I pretend to be.

5

Or these of the fame hand 4.

I leave the arts of poetry and verse

To them that practise them with more fuccefs:
Of greater truths I now prepare to tell,

6

And fo at once, dear friend and muse, farewell.

Sometimes a fingle Word will vulgarize a poetical idea; as where a Ship fet on fire owes all the Spirit of the Bathos to one choice word that ends the line.

And his fcorch'd ribs the hot contagion fry'd.

And in that defcription of a World in ruins:

Ti. Hom. Il. i, p. 11.

* Ti. Hom. Il. i. p. 19.

9 Idem, p. 17.

• P. 34.

3 P. 38.

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Afferting plainly that the firft book of the Iliad, published by

Tickell, was really the work of Addison.

Tonf. Mifc. 12mo vol. iv. p. 292, fourth Edit.

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These are the two laft feeble lines of Addifon's epiftle to Sa

cheverell; and the two preceding ones are as bad.

? Pr. Arthur, p. 151.

Should the whole frame of nature round him break,
He unconcern'd would hear the mighty Crack.

So alfo in thefe:

• Beafts tame and favage to the rivers brink, Come, from the fields and wild abodes to drink.

Frequently two or three words will do it effectually:

He from the clouds does the sweet liquor fqueeze,
That cheers the Foreft and the Garden trees.

2

It is also useful to employ Technical Terms, which eftrange your style from the great and general ideas

Tonf. Misc. vol. vi. p. 119.

9

Job, 263.

1 Ïd. Job, 264.

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No paffage in Blackmore himself can exceed the vulgarity of introducing technical terms, and fea language, more than the following lines of the 146, 147, and 148, flanzas of Dryden's Annus mirabilis:

"So here fome pick out bullets from the fides,

Some drive old okum thro' each feam and rift.
Their left hand does the calking iron guide,
The rattling mallet with the right they lift.

CXLVII.

"With boiling pitch another near at band

แ

From friendly Sweden brought, the feams inftops;
Which well laid o'er, the falt fea waves withftand,
And shake them from the rifing beak in drops.

CXLVIII.

་་

Some the gall'd ropes with dawby marling blind, Or fear-cloth math with ftrong tarpawling coats, To try new throuds one mounts into the wind, And one below their ease or ftiffness notes.' Who would think it poffible that these lines, and there are many fuch to be found in his works, could have been written by the author of Palamon and Arcite, and the Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.

3

of nature and the higher your fubject is, the lower fhould you fearch into mechanicks for your expreffion. If you describe the garment of an angel, fay that his Linen was finely fpun, and bleach'd on the happy plains. Call an army of angels, Angelic Cuiraffiers; and, if you have occafion to mention a number of misfortunes, ftyle them

5 Fresh Troops of Pains, and regimented Woes.

STYLE is divided by the Rhetoricians into the Proper and the Figured. Of the Figured we have already treated, and the Proper is what our authors have nothing to do with. Of Styles we shall mention only the principal which owe to the moderns either their chief Improvement, or entire invention.

1. THE FLORID STYLE,

than which none is more proper to the Bathos, as flowers, which are the lowest of vegetables, are most gaudy, and do many times grow in great plenty at the bottom of Ponds and Ditches.

A fine writer in this kind prefents you with the following Pofie:

• The groves appear all dreft with wreaths of flowers, And from their leaves drop aromatic fhowers, Whofe fragrant heads in myftic twines above, Exchange their Sweets, and mix'd 'with thousand kiffes,

3 Prince Arthur, p. 19.
Job, p. 86.

Behn's Poems, p. 2.

4 Ibid. p. 33g.

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As if the willing branches ftrove'

To beautify and fhade the grove,

(which indeed moft branches do.) But this is ftill excelled by our Laureat:

8 Branches in branches twin'd compofe the grove, And fhoot and Spread, and bloffom into love. The trembling palms their mutual vows repeat, And bending poplars bending poplars meet. The diftant plantanes feem to press more nigh, And to the fighing alders, alders figh.

Hear alfo our Homer.

• His Robe of State is form'd of light refin'd,
An endless Train of luftre fpreads behind.
His throne's of bright compacted Glory made,
With Pearl celeftial, and with Gems inlaid:
Whence Floods of joy, and Seas of Splendor flow,
On all th' angelic gazing throng below.

2. THE PERT STYLE.

This does in a peculiar manner become the low in wit, as a pert air does the low in ftature. Mr. Thomas Brown, the author of the London Spy, and all the Spies and Trips in general, are herein to be diligently ftudied: In Verfe Mr. Cibber's Prologues.

7 Is is furprizing to find fo falfe and florid a.conceit as is contained in the following lines, in a writer generally fo chafte and correct as Addison.

"While here the vine on hills of ruins climbs,

Induftrious to conceal great Bourbon's crimes." Campaign.

Guardian, 12° 127.

Blackm. Pf. civ.

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