the Bathos a Genius is requisite: yet the Rules of Art must be allowed so far useful, as to add weight, or, as I may say, hang on lead, to facilitate and enforce our descent, to guide us to the most advantageous declivities, and habituate our imagination to a depth of thinking. Many there are that can fall, but few can arrive at the felicity of falling gracefully; much more for a man who is amongst the lowest of the Creation, at the very bottom of the Atmosphere, to descend beneath himself, is not so easy a task unless he calls in Art to his assistance. It is with the Bathos as with small beer, which is indeed vapid and insipid, if left at large, and let abroad; but being by our Rules confined and well stopt, nothing grows so frothy, pert, and bouncing.

The Sublime of nature is the Sky, the Sun, Moon, Stars, etc. The Profund of Nature is Gold, Pearls, precious Stones, and the Treasures of the Deep, which are inestimable as unknown. But all that lies between these, as Corn, Flower, Fruits, Animals, and Things for the meer use of Man, are of mean price, and so common as not to be greatly esteemed by the curious. It being certain that any thing, of which we know the true use, cannot be invaluable: Which affords a solution, why common Sense hath either been totally despised, or held in small repute, by the greatest modern Critics and Authors.

"We have the same simile repeated in the Dunciad.

CHAP. V.

OF THE TRUE GENIUS FOR THE PROFUND, AND BY WHAT IT IS CONSTITUTED.

AND I will venture to lay it down, as the first Maxim and Corner-Stone of this our Art; that whoever would excel therein, must studiously avoid, detest, and turn his head from all the ideas, ways, and workings of that pestilent Foe to Wit, and Destroyer of fine Figures, which is known by the Name of Common Sense1. His business must be to contract the true Gout de travers; and to acquire a most happy, uncommon, unaccountable Way of Thinking.

He is to consider himself as a Grotesque painter, whose works would be spoiled by an intimation of nature, or uniformity of design. He is to mingle bits of the most various, or discordant kinds, landscape, history, portraits, animals, and connect them with a great deal of flourishing, by heads or tails, as it shall please his imagination, and contribute to his principal end, which is to glare by strong opposition of colours, and surprise by contrariety of images,

Serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni. Hor.

His design ought to be like a labyrinth, out of which nobody can get clear but himself. And since

This is too strongly expressed. Directly and without palliation and disguise, to recommend absurdity is false writing, and unnatural to a great degree; so also is the beginning of Chapter the Tenth.

the great Art of Poetry is to mix Truth with Fiction, in order to join the Credible with the Surprising; our author shall produce the Credible, by painting Nature in her lowest simplicity; and the Surprising, by contradicting common opinion. In the very Manners he will affect the Marvellous; he will draw Achilles with the patience of Job; a Prince talking like a Jack-pudding; a Maid of honour selling bargains; a footman speaking like a philosopher; and a fine Gentleman like a scholar. Whoever is conversant in modern Plays, may make a most noble collection of this kind, and at the same time, form a complete body of modern Ethics and Morality.

Nothing seemed more plain to our great authors, than that the world had long been weary of natural things. How much the contrary are formed to please, is evident from the universal applause daily given to the admirable entertainments of Harlequin and Magicians on our stage. When an audience behold a coach turned into a wheel-barrow, a conjurer into an old woman, or a man's head where his heels should be; how are they struck with transport and delight! Which can only be imputed to this cause, that each object is changed into that which hath been suggested to them by their own low ideas before.

He ought therefore to render himself master of this happy and anti-natural way of thinking to such a degree, as to be able, on the appearance of any object, to furnish his imagination with ideas infinitely below it. And his eyes should be like unto the wrong end of a perspective glass, by which all the objects of nature are lessened.

For example; when a true genius looks upon the Sky, he immediately catches the idea of a piece of blue lustring, or a child's mantle.

2 The Skies, whose spreading volumes scarce have room,
Spun thin, and wove in nature's finest loom,
The new-born world in their soft lap embrac'd,
And all around their starry mantle cast.

If he looks on a tempest, he shall have an image of a troubled bed, and describe a succeeding calm in this manner :

3 The Ocean, joy'd to see the tempest fled,

New lays his waves, and smooths his ruffled bed.

The Triumphs and Acclamations of the Angels, at the Creation of the Universe, present to his Imagination "the Rejoicings of the Lord Mayor's Day;" and he beholds those glorious beings celebrating the Creator, by huzzaing, making illuminations, and flinging squibs, crackers, and sky-rockets.

* Glorious Illuminations, made on high,
By all the stars and planets of the sky,
In just degrees, and shining order plac'd,
Spectators charm'd, and the best dwelling grac'd.

2 Prince Arthur, p. 41, 42. W.

Steele praises Prince Arthur in the Englishman.

3 Prince Arthur, p. 14. W.

• Ibid. p. 50. W.

N. B. In order to do Justice to these great Poets, our Citations are taken from the best, the last, and most correct Editions That which we use of Prince Arthur, is in Duo

of their Works.

decimo, 1714. The fourth Edition revised. P.

Thro' all th' enlighten'd air swift fire-works flew,
Which with repeated shouts glad Cherubs threw.
Comets ascended with their sweeping train,
Then fell in starry show'rs and glitt'ring rain.
In air ten thousand meteors blazing hung,
Which from the eternal battlements were flung.

If a man who is violently fond of Wit, will sacrifice to that passion his friend or his God, would it not be a shame, if he who is smit with the love of the Bathos should not sacrifice to it all other transitory regards? You shall hear a zealous Protestant Deacon invoke a Saint, and modestly beseech her to do more for us than Providence:

5

Look down, bless'd saint, with pity then look down,
Shed on this land thy kinder influence,

And guide us through the mists of providence,
In which we stray.

Neither will he, if a goodly Simile come to his way, scruple to affirm himself an eye-witness of things never yet beheld by man, or never in existence; as thus,

6 Thus have I seen in Araby the bless'd,

A Phoenix couch'd upon her fun'ral nest.

But to convince you that nothing is so great which a marvellous genius, prompted by this laudable zeal, is not able to lessen; hear how the most sublime of all Beings is represented in the following images:

A. Philips on the death of Queen Mary. W.

• Anon.