that remains to be said concerning the Diction. And here, that a judicious choice of proper and magnificent tèrms has wonderful effects in winning upon and entertaining an audience, cannot, I think, be denied. For it is from hence, that the greatest writers derive with indefatigable care the grandeur, the beauty, the solemnity, the weight, the strength, and the energy of their expressions. This clothes a composition in the most beautiful dress, makes it shine like a picture in all the gaiety of colour, and in a word, it animates our thoughts, and inspires them with a kind of vocal life. But it is needless to dwell upon these particulars, before persons of so much taste and experience. Fine words are indeed the peculiar light in which our thoughts must shine. But then it is by no means proper that they should every where swell and look big. For dressing up a trifling subject in grand exalted expressions, makes the same ridiculous appearance, as the enormous mask of a tragedian would do upon the diminutive face of an infant. But in poetry

[ remainder of this Section is lost.]

* (The

SECTION

*

iti SECTION XXXI.

[The beginning of this Section is lost.] * In this verse of Anacreon, the terms are vulgar, yet there is a simplicity in it which pleases, because it is natural:

Nor shall this Thracian vex me more ! 1 And for this reason, that celebrated expression of Theopompus seems to me the most significant of any I ever met with, though Ceci

. lius has found something to blame in it, स

Philip (says he) was used to swallow af

fronts, in compliance with the exigencies 66 of his affairs."

2 Vulgar terms are sometimes much more significant than the most ornamental could

possibly

$

1

1

2

There never was a line of higher grandeur, or more honourable to human nature,, expressed at the same time in a greater plainness and simplicity of terms, than the following, in the Essay on Man.

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Images, drawn from common life or familiar objects, stand in need of a deal of judgment to support and keep them from sinking, but have a much better effect, and are far more expressive, when managed by a skilful hand, than those of a higher nature: the truth of this remark is visible from these lines in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:

I would

a

a

possibly be. They are easily understood,
because, borrowed from common life; and
what is most familiar to us, soonest engages

our
I would have thee gone,
And yet no further than a wanton's bird,
That lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread pulls it back again,

So loving jealous of its liberty.--
Mr. Addison has made use of an Image of a lower
nature in his Cato, where the lover cannot part with his
mistress without the highest regret; as the lady could
not with her lover in the former instance from Shake-
speare. He has touched it with equal delicacy and
grace:

Thus o'er the dying lamp th’ unsteady flame
Hangs quiv'ring to a point; leaps off by fits,

And falls again, as loth to quit its hold.
I have ventured to give these instances of the beauty
and strength of Images taken from low and common
objects, because what the Critic says of Terms, holds
equally in regard to Images. An expression is not the
worse for being obvious and familiar, for a judicious ap-
plication gives it new dignity and strong significance.
All images and words are dangerous to such as want ge-
nius and spirit. By their management, grand words

, and images, improperly thrown together, sink into burlesque and sounding nonsense, and the easy and familiar are tortured into insipid fustian. A true genius will steer securely in either course, and with such bold rashness on particular occasions, that he will almost touch upon rocks, yet never receive any damage. This

M

remark,

our belief. Therefore when a person, to promote his ambitious designs, bears ill treatment and reproaches not only with patience, but a seeming pleasure, to say that he swallows affronts, is as happy and expressive a phrase as could possibly be. invented. The following passage from Herodotus in my opinion comes very near it*. 66 Cleomenes

remark, in that part of it which regards the Terms, may be illustrated by the following lines of Shakespeare, spoken by Apemantus to Timon, when he had abjured all human society, and vowed to pass the remainder of his days in a desert.

a

What? think'st thou That the bleak air, thy boist'rous chamberlain, Will put thy shirt on warm? will these moist trees, That have out-liv’d the eagle, page thy heels, And skip when thou point'st out? will the cold brook, Candied with ice, cawdle thy morning taste To cure thy o'er-night's surfeit? Call the creatures, Whose naked natures live in all the spite Of wreakful heav'n, whose bare unhoused trunks, To the conflicting elements expos'd, Answer mere nature; bid them flatter thee; Oh! thou shalt find

The whole is carried on with so much spirit, and supported by such an air of solemnity, that it is noble and affecting. Yet the same expressions and allusions, in inferior hands, might have retained their original baseness, and been quite ridiculous. * Herod. 1. 6. c. 75.

(says

a

“ (says he) being seized with madness, with

little knife that he had, cut his flesh into “ small pieces, till having entirely mangled “ his body, he expired.” And again*,

Pythes remaining still in the ship, fought “ courageously, till he was hacked in pieces.” These expressions approach near to vulgar, but are far from having vulgar significations.

66

SECTION XXXII.'

As to a proper number of Metaphors, Cecilius has

gone into their opinion, who have settled it at two or three at most, in expressing the same object. But in this also, let Demosthenes be observedas our model and guide; and by him we shall find, that the proper time to apply them, is, when the passions are so much worked up, as to hurry on like a torrent, and unavoidably carry along with them a whole crowd of metaphors.

« 1 Those

prostiHerod. 1. 7. c. 181.

Demosthenes, in this instance, bursts not out upon the traitorous creatures of Philip, with such bitterness and severity, strikes them not dumb, with such a continuation of vehement and cutting Metaphors, as St. Jude some profligate wretches in his Epistle, ver. 12, 13. “ These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they M 2

“ feast

a