CHAP. VI.

OF THE

SEVERAL

KINDS OF GENIUSES IN THE

PROFUND, AND THE MARKS AND CHARACTERS OF EACH.

I DOUBT not but the reader, by this Cloud of examples, begins to be convinced of the truth of our assertion, that the Bathos is an Art; and that the Genius of no mortal whatever, following the mere ideas of Nature, and unassisted with an habitual, nay laborious peculiarity of thinking, could arrive at images so wonderfully low and unaccountable. The great author, from whose treasury we have drawn all these instances (the Father of the Bathos, and indeed the Homer of it), has, like that immortal Greek, confined his labours to the greater Poetry, and thereby left room for others to acquire a due share of praise in inferior kinds. Many painters, who could never hit a nose or an eye, have with felicity copied a small-pox, or been admirable at a toad or a red-herring. And seldom are we without geniuses for Still-life, which they can work up and stiffen with incredible accuracy.

A universal Genius rises not in an age; but when he rises, armies rise in him! he pours forth five or six Epic Poems with greater facility, than five or six pages can be produced by an elaborate and servile copier after Nature or the Ancients. It

is affirmed by Quintilian1, that the same genius which made Germanicus so great a General, would with equal application have made him an excellent Heroic Poet. In like manner, reasoning from the affinity there appears between Arts and Sciences, I doubt not, but an active catcher of butterflies, a careful and fanciful pattern-drawer, an industrious collector of shells, a laborious and tuneful bagpiper, or a diligent breeder of tame rabbits, might severally excel in their respective parts of the Bathos.

I shall range these confined and less copious Geniuses under proper classes, and (the better to give their pictures to the reader) under the names of Animals of some sort or other; whereby he will be enabled, at the first sight of such as shall daily come forth, to know to what kind to refer, and with what Authors to compare them.

1. The Flying Fishes: These are writers who now and then rise upon their fins, and fly out of the Profund; but their wings are soon dry, and they drop down to the bottom. G. S. A. H. C. G.

2. The Swallows are authors that are eternally

In a fine passage of the tenth book: "Germanicum Augustum ab institutis studiis deflexit cura terrarum; parumque diis visum est esse eum maximum poetarum."

• This was the chapter which gave so much offence, and excited such loud clamours against our author by his introduction of these initial letters, which he in vain asserted were placed at random, and meant no particular writers; which was not believed. These initial letters cannot now be authentically filled up.

skimming and fluttering up and down, but all their agility is employed to catch flies. L. T. W. P. Lord H.

3. The Ostriches are such, whose heaviness rarely permits them to raise themselves from the ground; their wings are of no use to lift them up; and their motion is between flying and walking; but then they run very fast. D. F. L. E. The Hon. E. H.

4. The Parrots are they that repeat another's words, in such a hoarse odd voice, as makes them seem their own. W. B. W. H. C. C. The Reverend D. D.

5. The Didappers are authors that keep themselves long out of sight, under water, and come up now and then where you least expected them. L. W. G. D. Esq. The Hon. Sir W. Young.

6. The Porpoises are unwieldy and big; they put all their numbers into a great turmoil and tempest, but whenever they appear in plain light (which is seldom) they are only shapeless and ugly monsters. I. D. C. G. I. O..

7. The Frogs are such as can neither walk nor fly, but can leap and bound to admiration: They live generally in the bottom of a ditch, and make a great noise whenever they thrust their heads above water. E. W. I. M. Esq. T. D. Gent.

8. The Eels are obscure authors, that wrap themselves up in their own mud, but are mighty nimble and pert. L. W. L. T. P. M. General C.

9. The Tortoises are slow and chill, and, like pastoral writers, delight much in gardens: they have for the most part a fine embroidered Shell, and underneath it, a heavy lump. A. P. W. B. L. E. The Right Hon. E. of S.

These are the chief Characteristics of the Bathos, and in each of these kinds we have the comfort to be blessed with sundry and manifold choice Spirits in this our island.

CHAP. VII.

OF THE PROFUND, WHEN IT CONSISTS IN THE THOUGHT.

WE have already laid down the Principles upon which our author is to proceed, and the manner of forming his Thoughts by familiarizing his mind to the lowest objects; to which it may be added, that Vulgar Conversation will greatly contribute. There is no question but the Garret or the Printer's boy may often be discerned in the compositions made in such scenes and company; and much of Mr. Curl himself has been insensibly infused into the works of his learned writers.

The Physician, by the study and inspection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the science; and in like sort should our author accustom and exercise his imagination upon the dregs of nature.

This will render his thoughts truly and fundamentally low1, and carry him many fathoms beyond Mediocrity. For, certain it is (though some lukewarm heads imagine they may be safe by temporizing between the extremes) that where there is not a Triticalness or Mediocrity in the Thought, it can never be sunk into the genuine and perfect Bathos, by the most elaborate low Expression: It can, at most, be only carefully obscured, or metaphorically debased. But 'tis the Thought alone that strikes, and gives the whole that spirit, which we admire and stare at. For instance, in that ingenious piece on a lady's drinking the Bath-waters:

*She drinks! She drinks! Behold the matchless dame! To her 'tis water, but to us 'tis flame:

Thus fire is water, water fire by turns,

And the same stream at once both cools and burns.

What can be more easy and unaffected than the Diction of these verses? 'Tis the Turn of Thought alone, and the Variety of Imagination, that charm and surprise us. And when the same lady goes into

It would be unpardonable not to censure such images and expressions.

Mr. Spence informed me that this passage, and many other ridiculous ones, in this treatise, were quoted from our poet's own early pieces, particularly his epic poem, called Alcander. So sensible of its own errors and imperfections is a mind truly great.

When Voltaire first brought on the stage his Mariamne, 1722, in which Herod gave her a cup of poison, the Parterre cried out, "La Reine boit," and the play was damned.