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, Dalhousy, the great God of war,
Lieutenant-colonel to the earl of Mar.+

On the valour of the English.

Nor Art nor Nature has the force
To stop its ready 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 some great image, he either finds it surprisingly imperfect, or is presented with something low, or quite ridiculous: a surprise resembling that of a curious person in a cabinet of antique statues, who beholds on the pedestal the names of Homer, or Cato; but looking up finds Homer without a head, and nothing to be seen of Cato but his privy member. Such are these lines of a Leviathan at sea:

His motion works, and beats the oozy mud,
And with its slime incorporates the flood,
'Till all th' encumber'd, thick, fermenting stream
Does like one pot of boiling ointment seem.
Where'er he swims, he leaves along the lake
Such frothy furrows, such a foamy track,
That all the waters of the deep appear

Hoary with age, or gray with sudden fear.

But perhaps even these are excelled by the ensuing.

+ Anonymous.

* Anonymous. Blackmore, Job, 197.

Dennis on Namur.

Now the resisted flames and fiery store,
By winds assaulted, in wide forges roar,
And raging seas flow down of melted ore.
Sometimes they hear long iron bars remov'd,
And to and fro huge heaps of cinders shov'd. *

is also a species of the diminishing: by this a spear flying into the air is compared to a boy whistling as goes on an errand:

he

The mighty Stuffa threw a massy spear,

Which, with its errand pleas'd, sung through the air. +

A man raging with grief to a mastiff dog.

I cannot stifle this gigantic woe,

Nor on my raging grief a muzzle throw.+

And clouds big with water to a woman in great necessity:

Distended with the waters in 'em pent,

The clouds hang deep in air, but hang unrent.

3. The INFANTINE.

This is, when a poet grows so very simple, as to think and talk like a child. I shall take my examples from the greatest master in this way. Hear how he fondles like a mere stammerer:

Little charm of placid mien,
Miniature of Beauty's Queen,
Hither British muse of mine,
Hither, all ye Grecian Nine,
With the lovely Graces three,
And your pretty nurseling see.

* Prince Arthur, p. 157. + Prince Arthur. Job, p. 41.

When the meadows next are seen,
Sweet enamel white and green,
When again the lambkins play,
Pretty sportlings full of May.
Then the neck so white and round,
(Little neck with brilliants bound)
And thy gentleness of mind,
(Gentle from a gentle kind), &c.
Happy thrice, and thrice again,
Happiest he of happy men, * &c!

and the rest of those excellent lullabies of his composition.

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

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

Hear how a babe would reason on his nurse's death:

That ever she could die! O most unkind!
To die, and leave poor Colinet behind!

And yet,

why blame I her? ‡

With no less simplicity does he suppose that shepherdesses tear their hair and beat their breasts at their own deaths:

Ye brighter maids, faint emblems of my fair,

With looks cast down, and with dishevell❜d hair,

In bitter anguish beat your breasts,

and moan

Her death untimely, as it were your own. ||

4. The INANITY, or NOTHINGNESS.

Of this the same author furnishes us with most beautiful instances.

*Ambrose Philips on Miss Cuzzona.

Ibid.

Ibid.

+ Philips's Pastorals.

Ah silly I, more silly than my sheep,

(Which on the flow'ry plain I once did keep.)*
To the grave senate she could counsel give,
(Which with astonishment they did receive.) +

He whom loud cannon could not terrify,
Fall from the grandeur of his majesty.

Happy, merry as a king,

Sipping dew-you sip and sing.

Where you easily perceive the nothingness of every second verse.

The noise returning with returning light,

What did it?

Dispersed the silence, and dispell'd the night. §

The glories of proud London to survey,
The sun himself shall rise-by break of day. I

5. The EXPLETIVE,

admirably exemplified in the epithets of many

authors:

Th' umbrageous shadow, and the verdant green, **
The running current, and odorous fragrance,
Cheer my lone solitude with joyous gladness.

Or in pretty drawling words like these:

All men his tomb, all men his sons adore,
And his sons' sons, till there shall be no more. ††

** I am afraid he glanced at Thomson.-Dr WARTON, ++ T. Cook, Poems.

The rising sun our grief did see,
The setting sun did see the same;

While wretched we remember'd thee,

O Sion, Sion, lovely name! *

6. The MACROLOGY and PLEONASM

are as generally coupled, as a lean rabbit with a fat one; nor is it a wonder, the superfluity of words, and vacuity of sense, being just the same thing. I am pleased to see one of our greatest adversaries† employ this figure.

The growth of meadows, and the pride of fields,
The food of armies and support of wars,

Refuse of swords, and gleanings of a fight,
Lessen his numbers and contract his host,
Where'er his friends retire, or foes succeed,
Cover'd with tempests, and in oceans drown'd. ‡

Of all which the perfection is

The TAUTOLOGY.

Break through the billows, and-divide the main.§
In smoother numbers, and-in softer verse.
Divide and part-the sever'd world-in two. ||

* T. Cook, Poems.

+ Even such poor writers as Catullus, Lucretius, and Horace, have sometimes been guilty of Pleonasms: of which there are examples in the Micellaneous Observations of Jortin, p. 37, vol. ii. Of this sort of style Quintilian, as usual, speaks elegantly: "Ut corpora non robore sed valetudine inflantur; et recto itinere lapsi, plerumque divertunt. Erit ergo obscurior, quo quisqui deterior." Again, "Ut staturà breves in digitos eriguntur, et plura infirmi minantur.-Ne oneretur tamen verbis multis; nam sit longa et impedita oratio, ut eam judices similem agmini todidem lixas habenti quot milites; in quo et numerus est duplex, nec duplum virium." The six English lines here quoted are a severe stroke on Addison's Campaign.-Dr WARTON.

+ Camp. § Tonson's Miscellany, 12mo. vol. iv. p. 291, 4th edit. Tonson's Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 121.