one must feel the discordance.

The following

couplet, sinking far below the subject, is no less ludicrous.

Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,
Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose.

Essay on Man, Ep. IV. 223.

Le Rhin tremble et fremit à ces tristes nouvelles ;
Le feu sort à travers ses humides prunelles,
C'est donc trop peu, dit-il, que l'Escaut en deux mois
Ait appris à couler sous de nouvelles loix;
Et de mille remparts men onde environnée
De ces fleuves sans nom suivra la destinée ?
Ah! perissent mes eaux, ou par d'illustres coups
Montrons qui doit céder des mortels ou de nous.
A ces mots essuiant sa barbe limonneuse,

Il prend d'un vieux guerrier la figure poudreuse.
Son front cicatricé rend son air furieux,
Et Pardeur du combat étincelle en ses yeux.

Boileau, Epitre IV. 1. 61.

A god wiping his dirty beard is proper for burlesque poetry only; and altogether unsuitable to the strained elevation of this poem.

On the other hand, to raise the expression above the tone of the subject, is a fault than which none is more common. Take the following instances:

Orcan le plus fidéle à server ses desseins,
Né sous le ciel brûlant des plus noirs Affricains.
Bajazet, Act III. Sc. 8.

Les ombres par trois fois ont obscurci les cieux
Depuis que le sommeil n'est entré dans vos yeux :
Et le jour a trois fois chassé la nuit obscure
Depuis que votre corps languit sans nourriture.

Phedra, Act I. Sc. 3.

Assuerus. Ce mortel, qui montra tant de zéle pour moi, Vit il

encore ?

Asaph.

Il voit l'astre qui vous éclaire.
Esther, Act II. Se. 3.

Qui, c'est Agamemnon c'est ton roi qui t'eveille;
Viens, reconnois la voix qui frappe ton oreille.

No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell;
And the King's rowse the heav'ns shall bruit again,
Respeaking earthly thunder.

Iphigenie

Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 2,

In the inner room

I spy a winking lamp, that weakly strikes
The ambient air, scarce kindling into light.

Southern, Fute of Capua, Act III.

In the funeral orations of the Bishop of Meaux, the following passages are raised far above the tone of the subject:

L'Ocean etonné de se voir traversé tant de fois, en des appareils si divers, et pour des causes si differentes, &c.

p. 6.

Grande Reine, je satisfais à vos plus tendres desirs, quand je célébre ce monarque; et son cœur qui n'a jamais vêcu que pour lui, se evile, tout poudre qu'il est, et devient sensible, même sous ce drap mortuaire, au nom d'un epoux si cher.

P. 32.

Montesquieu, in a didactic work, L'esprit des Loix, gives too great indulgence to imagination: the tone of his language swells frequently above his subject. I give an example;

Mr. le Comte de Boulainvilliers et Mr. Abbé Dubos ont fait chacun un systeme, dont l'un semble être une conjuration contre le tiers-etat, et l'autre une conjuration contre la noblesse. Lorsque le Soleil donna à Phaeton sop char à conduire, il lui dit, Si vous montes trop haut, vous rulerez la demeure céleste; si vous descendez trop bas, ous réduirez en cendres la terre: n'allez point trop à droite, vous tomberiez dans la constellation du serpent; n'allez pojat trop à gauche, vous iriez dans celle de l'autel: tenez-vous entre les deaux.

L. xxx. ch. 10

The following passage, intended, one would imagine, as a receipe to boil water, is altogether burlesque by the laboured elevation of the diction:

A massy caldron of stupendous frame

They brought, and plac'd it o'er the rising flame:
Then heap the lighted wood; the flame divides
Beneath the vase, and climbs around the sides :
In its wide womb they pour the rushing stream:
The boiling water bubbles to the brim.

Iliad, xviii. 405.

In a passage at the beginning of the 4th book of Telemachus, one feels a sudden bound upward without preparation, which accords not with the subject:

Calypso, qui avoit été justu' à ce moment immobile et transportée de plaisir en écoutant les avantures de Télémaque, l'interrompit pour lui faire pendre quelque repôs. Il est tems, lui ditelle, qui vous alliez goûter la douceur du sommeil aprés tant de travaux. Vous n'avez rien à craindre ici; tout vous est favorable. Abandonnez vous donc à la joye. Goutez la paix, et tous les autres dons des dieux dont vous allez être comble. Demain, quand l'Aurore avec ses doigts de roses entr'ouvrira les portes doFees de l'Orient, et que le Chevaux du Soleil sortans de l'onde amere repandront les flames du jour, pour chasser devant eux toutes Les etoiles du ciel, nous reprendrons, mon cher Télémaque, l'bistore de vos malheurs.

This cbviously is copied from a similar passage in the Æned, which ought to have been copied, because it lies open to the same censure; but the force of authority is great :

At regina gravi jaududum saucia cura
Vulnus alit venis, et coco carpitur igni.
Multa viri virtus animo, Lultusque recursat
Gentis honos: hærent infixi pectore vultus,

Verbaque; nec placidam membris dat cura quietem.
Postera Phabea lustrabat lampade terras,

Humentemque Aurora polo dimoverat umbram;
Cum sic unanimem alloquitur malesana sororem.

Lib. iv. 1.

Take another example where the words rise above the subject:

Ainsi les peuples y accoururent bientôt en foule de toutes partes; le commerce de cette ville étoit semblable au flux et au reflux de la mer. Les trésors y entroient comme les flots viennent l'un sur l'autre. Tout y étoit apporté et en sortoit librement; tout ce qui y entroit, etoit utile; tout ce qui en sortoit, laissoit en sortant d'autres richesses en sa place. La justicé sevére presidoit dans le port au milieu de tant de nations. La franchise, la bonne foi, la candeur, sembloient du haut de ces superbs tours appeller les marchands des terres le plus éloignées: chacun de ces marchands, soit qu'il vint des rives orientales ou le soleil sort chaque jour du sein des ondes, soet qu'il fut parti de cette grande me ou le soleil lasse de son cours va eteindre ses feux, vivoit paisiþle et sureté dans Sulante comme dans sa patríe!

Telemaque, 1. xii.

The language of Homer is suited to his subject, no less accurately than the actions and sentiments of his heroes are to their characters. Virgil, in that particular, falls short of perfection: his language is stately throughout; and though he descends at times to the simplest branches of cookery, roasting and boiling for example, yet he never relaxes a moment from the high tone.* In adjusting his language to his subject, no writer equals Swift. I can recollect but one exception, which at the same time is far from being gross: The journal of a modern lady is composed in a style blending sprightliness with familiarity, perfectly suited to the subject in one passage, however, the poet deviating from that style, takes a tone above his subject. The passage I have in view begins, l. 116. But let me now a while survey, &c. and ends at l. 135.

It is proper to be observed upon this head, that writers of inferior rank are continually upon the stretch to enliven and enforce their subject by exaggeration and superlatives. This unluckily has

* See Eneid, lib. i. 188–219.

an effect contrary to what is intended; the reader, disgusted with language that swells above the subject, is led by contrast to think more meanly of the subject than it may possibly deserve. A man of prudence, beside, will be no less careful to husband his strength in writing than in walking: a writer too liberal of superlatives, exhausts his whole stock upon ordinary incidents, and reserves no share to express, with greater energy, matters of importance.*

Many writers of that kind abound so in epithets, as if poetry consisted entirely in high-sounding words. Take the following instance:

ア

When black-brow'd Night her dusky mantle spread,
And wrapt in solemn gloom the sable sky :
When soothing Sleep her opiate dews had shed,
And seal'd in silken slumbers ev'ry eye:
My wakeful thoughts admit no balmy rest,
Nor the sweet bliss of soft oblivion share :

But watchful wo distracts my aching breast,
My heart the subject of corroding care:

From haunts of men with wand'ring steps and slow

I solitary steal, and sooth my pensive wo.

Here every substantive is faithfully attended by some tumid epithet; like young master, who cannot walk abroad without having a lac'd livery-man at his heels. Thus in reading without taste, an emphasis is laid on every word; and in singing without taste, every note is graced. Such redundancy of epithets, instead of pleasing, produce satiety and disgust.

Montaigne, reflecting upon the then present modes, observes, that there never was at any other time, so abject and servile prostitution of words in the addresses made by people of fashion to one another; the humblest tenders of life and soul, no professions under that of devotion and adoration; the writer constantly declaring himself a vassal, nay a slave: so that when any more serious occasion of friendship or gratitude, requires more genuine professions, words are wanting to express them.