CATACHRESIS.

A master of this will say,

Mow the beard,

Shave the grass,

Pin the plank,
Nail my sleeve.

From whence results the same kind of pleasure to the mind, as to the eye, when we behold Harlequin trimming himself with a hatchet, hewing down a tree with a rasor, making his tea in a cauldron, and brewing his ale in a tea-pot, to the incredible satisfaction of the British spectator. Another source of the bathos is,

The METONYMY,

the inversion of causes for effects, of inventors for inventions, &c.

Lac'd in her Cosins* new appeared the bride,
A Bubble-boy + and Tompion ‡ at her side,
And with an air divine her Colmar || ply'd.
Then O! she cries, what slaves I round me see!
Here a bright Red-coat, there a smart Toupée §.

The SYNECDOCHE,

}

which consists in the use of a part for the whole. You may call a young woman sometimes pretty-face and pigs-eyes, and sometimes snotty-nose and draggletail. Or, of accidents, for persons; as a lawyer, is called split-cause, a tailor, prick-louse, &c. Or of things belonging to a man, for the man himself; as a sword-man, a gown-man, a t-m-t-d-man; a whitestaff, a turn-key, &c.

* Stays.

+ Tweezer-case. † Watch. || Fan. § A sort of perriwig: all words in use at this present year 1727.

The

The APOSIOPESIS,

an excellent figure for the ignorant, as "what shall I

say?" when one has nothing to say: or " I can no " more," when one really can no more. Expressions which the gentle reader is so good as never to take in earnest.

The METAPHOR.

The first rule is to draw it from the lowest things, which is a certain way to sink the highest; as when you speak of the thunder of Heaven, say,

The lords above are angry and talk big *.

Or if you would describe a rich man refunding his treasures, express it thus,

Tho' he (as said) may riches gorge, the spoil
Painful in massy vomit shall recoil :

Soon shall he perish with a swift decay,

Like his own ordure, cast with scorn away t.

The second, that whenever you start a metaphor, you must be sure to run it down, and pursue it as far as it can go. If you get the scent of a state negotiation, follow it in this manner:

The stones and all the elements with thee
Shall ratify a strict confederacy;

Wild beasts their savage temper shall forget,
And for a firm alliance with thee treat;
The finny tyrant of the spacious seas
Shall send a scaly embassy for peace;
His plighted faith the crocodile shall keep,
And seeing thee, for joy sincerely weep ‡.

• Lee's Alex.

‡ Job, p. 22.

+ Blackm. Job, p. 91, 93.

Or

Or if you represent the Creator denouncing war against the wicked, be sure not to omit one circumstance usual in proclaiming and levying war.

Envoys and agents, who by my command
Reside in Palestina's land,

To whom commissions I have given
To manage there the interests of Heaven.

Ye holy heralds, who proclaim

Or war or peace, in mine your master's name,
Ye pioneers of Heaven, prepare a road,
Make it plain, direct and broad; -
For I in person will my people head;
For the divine deliverer

Will on his march in majesty appear,
And needs the aid of no confed'rate pow'r *.

Under the Article of the confounding we rank,

1. The MIXTURE OF FIGURES,

which raises so many images, as to give you no image at all. But its principal beauty is, when it gives an idea just opposite to what it seemed meant to describe. Thus an ingenious artist, painting the spring, talks of a snow of blossoms, and thereby raises an unexpected picture of winter. Of this sort is the following:

The gaping clouds pour lakes of sulphur down,
Whose livid flashes sickning sunbeams drown t.

What a noble confusion! clouds, lakes, brimstone, flames, sun-beams, gaping, pouring, sickning, drowning! all in two lines.

2. The JARGON.

Thy head shall rise, tho' buried in the dust,
And 'midst the clouds his glittering turrets thrust ‡.

• Black. Isa. c. xl.

† Pr. Arthur, p. 37.

‡ Job, p. 107.

Quere, Quære, What are the glittering turrets of a man's head?

Upon the shore; as frequent as the sand,
To meet the prince, the glad Dimetians stand *.

Quare, Where these Dimetians stood? and of what size they were? add also to the jargon such as the following:

Destruction's empire shall no longer last,
And desolation lie for ever waste †.

Here Niobe, sad mother, makes her moan,
And seems converted to a stone in stone 1.

But for variegation, nothing is more useful than

3. The PARANOMASIA, or PUN,

where a word, like the tongue of a jack-daw, speaks twice as much by being split: as this of Mr. Dennis. Bullets, that wound, like Parthians as they fly ||:

or this excellent one of Mr. Welsted,

Behold the virgin lye Naked, and only cover'd by the sky §.

To which thou may'st add,

To see her beauties no man needs to stoop,
She has the whole horizon for her hoop.

4. The ANTITHESIS, OF SEE-SAW, whereby contraries and oppositions are balanced in such a way, as to cause a reader to remain suspended between them, to his exceeding delight and recreation. Such are these on a lady, who made herself

• Pr. Arthur, p. 157. || Poems 1693, p. 13. VOL, XVII.

† Job, p. 89. ‡ T. Cook, poems. § Welsted, poems, Acon & Lavin.

D

appear out of size, by hiding a young princess under her clothes.

While the kind nymph, changing her faultless shape,
Becomes unhandsome, handsomely to scape *.

On the maids of honour in mourning.
Sadly they charm, and dismally they please t.
His eyes so bright

Let in the object and let out the light 1.
The Gods look pale to see us look so red ||.

The Fairies and their queen,

In mantles blue came tripping o'er the green §.

All nature felt a reverential shock,

The sea stood still to see the mountains rock.

CHAP. XI.

The figures continued: of the magnifying and diminishing figures.

A GENUINE writer of the profund, will take care never to magnify any object without clouding it at the same time; his thought will appear in a true mist, and very unlike what is in nature. It must always be remembered, that darkness is an essential quality of the profund, or if there chance to be a glimmering, it must be, as Milton expresses it,

No light, but rather darkness visible.

The chief figure of this sort is,