This author, in riper years is guilty of a much greater deviation from the rule. Dullness may be imagined a deity or idol, to be worshipped by bad writers; but then fome fort of difguife is requifite, fome baftard virtue must be bestowed, to make fuch worship in fome degree excufible. Yet in the Dunciad, Dullness without the leaft difguife, is made the object of worship. The mind rejects fuch a fiction as unnatural; for dullness is a defect, of which even the dulleft mortal is ashamed:

Then he Great tamer of all human art!

:

First in my care, and ever at my heart;

Dullness! whofe good old caufe I yet defend,
With whom my Mufe began, with whom fhall end,
E'er fince Sir Fopling's periwig was praife,
To the last honours of the Bull and Bays!
O thou! of bus'nefs the directing foul!
To this our head, like bias to the bowl,
Which as more pond'rous, made its aim more true,
Obliquely wadling to the mark in view :
O! ever gracious to perplex'd mankind,
Still fpread a healing mift before the mind:
And, left we err by Wit's wild dancing light,
Secure us kindly in our native night.
Or, if to wit a coxcomb make pretence,
Guard the fure barrier between that and sense;
Or quite unravel all the reas'ning thread,
And hang fome curious cobweb in its flead!
As, forc'd from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And pond'rous flugs cut fwiftly through the sky;
As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,
The wheels above urg'd by the load below:
Me Emptiness and Dullness could infpire,
And were my elafticity, and fire.

B. i. 163.

The following inftance is ftretched beyond all refemblance: it is bold to take a part or member of a living creature, and to bestow upon it life, volition, and

N4

action:

action after animating two fuch members, it is ftill bolder to make one envy the other; for this is wide of any resemblance to reality:

De noftri baci

Meritamenti fia giudice quella,
Che la bocca ha più bella.

Tutte concordemente

Elefler la beliflima Amarilli

Ed' ella i fuoi begli occhi
Dolcemente chinando,

Di modefto roffor tutta fi tinfe,

E moftro ben, che non men bella è dentro

Di quel che fia di fuori;

O foffe, che'l bel volto

Avelle invidia all' onorata bocca,

E s'adornaffe anch' egli

Della purpurea fua pompofa, vesta,
Quafi voleffe dir, fon bello anch'io.

Paftor Fido, act 2. fc. 1.

Fifthly, The enthufiafm of paffion may have the effect to prolong paffionate perfonification: but def criptive perfonification cannot be dispatched in toa few words: a circumftantiate description diffolves the charm, and makes the attempt to perfonify appear ridiculous. Homer fucceeds in animating his darts and arrows but fuch perfonification fpun out in a French tranflation, is mere burlesque :

Et la fléche en furie, avide de fon fang,
Part, vole à lui, l'atteint, et lui perce le flanc.

Horace fays happily,

Poft equitem fedet atra Cura.

Obferve how this thought degenerates by being die vided, like the former, into a number of minute parts:

Un

Un fou rempli d'erreurs, que le trouble accompagne
Et malade à la ville ainfi qu' à la campagne,
En vain monte à cheval pour tromper fon ennui,
Le Chagrin monte en croupe, et galope avec lui.

A poet, in a fhort and lively expreffion, may animate his mufe, his genius, and even his veríe: but to animate his verfe, and to address a whole epiftle to it, as Boileau doth,* is infupportable.

The following paffage is not lefs faulty:

Her fate is whifper'd by the gentle breeze,
And told in fighs to all the trembling trees;
The trembling trees, in ev'ry plain and wood,
Her fate remurmur to the filver flood;
The filver flood, fo lately calm, appears
Swell'd with new pallion, and o'erflows with tears;
The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore,
Daphne, our grief! our glory! now no more.

Pope's Paflorals, iv. 61.

Let grief or love have the power to animate the winds, the trees, the floods, provided the figure be dispatched in a fingle expreffion: even in that cafe, the figure feldom has a good effect; because grief or love of the paftoral kind, are caufes rather too faint for fo violent an effect as imagining the winds, trees, or floods, to be fenfible beings. But when this figure is deliberately fpread out, with great regularity and accuracy, through many lines, the reader, instead of relishing it, is ftruck with its ridicu lous appearance.

SECT. II.

Apostrophe.

THIS figure and the former are derived from the fame principle. If, to humour a plaintive paflion, we can beftow a momentary fenfibility upon an inanimate object, it is not more difficult to bestow a momentary prefence upon a fenfible being who is

abfent :

Hinc Drepani me portus et illætabilis ora

Accipit. Hic, pelagi tot tempeftatibus actus,
Heu! genitorem, omnis curæ cafufque levamen,
Amitto Anchifen: bie me puter optime feffum
Deferis, heu! tantis nequicquam erepte periclis.
Nec vates Helenus, cum multa horrenda moneret,
Hos mihi prædixit luctus; non dira Celano.
Æneid, iii. 707.

Strike the harp in praife of Bragela, whom I left in the ile of mift, the fpoufe of my love. Doft thou raise thy fair face from the rock to find the fails of Cuchullin ? The fea is rolling far diftant, and its white foam shall deceive thee for my fails. Retire for it is night my love, and the dark winds figh in thy hair. Retire to the hall of my feafts, and think of the times that are past; for I will not return till the storm of war is gone. O Connal fpeak of wars and arms, and fend her from my mind; for lovely with her raven-hair is the white-bofom'd daughter of Sorglan.

Speaking of Fingal abfent.

Fingal, b. 1.

Happy are thy people, O Fingal; thine arm fhall fight their battles. Thou art the first in their dangers; the wifeft in the days of their peace: thou fpeakeft, and thy thou

fands

C

fands obey; and armies tremble at the found of thy fteel. Happy are thy people, O Fingal.

This figure is fometimes joined with the former :
things inanimate, to qualify them for listening to a
paffionate expoftulation, are not only perfonified, but
alfo conceived to be prefent :

Et fi fata Deûm, fi mens non læva fuiffet,
Impulerat ferro Argolicas foedare latebras :
Trojaque nunc ftares, Priamique arx alta maneres.

Eneid, ii. 54.

Helena

Poor Lord, is't I

That chafe thee from thy country, and expofe
Those tender limbs of thine to the event

Of non-fparing war? And is it I

That drive thee from the fportive court, where thou
Waft fhot at with fair eyes, to be the mark
Of smoky mufkets? O you leaden messengers,
That ride upon the violent speed of fire,
Fly with falfe aim; pierce the ftill moving air
That fings with piercing; do not touch my Lord.
All's well that ends well, aci 3. fc. 4.

And let them lift ten thoufand fwords, faid Nathos with a fmile the fons of car-borne Ufnoth will never tremble in danger. Why dost thou roll with all thy foam, thou roaring fea of Ullin? why do ye ruftle on your dark wings, ye whittling tempefts of the fky? Do ye think, ye ftorins, that ye keep Nathos on the coaft? No; his foul detains him; children of the night! Althos, bring my father's arms, &c.

Fingal.

Whether haft thou fled, O wind, faid the King of Morven! Doft thou ruftle in the chambers of the fouth, and pursue the fhower in other lands? Why comeft not thou to my fails, to the blue face of my feas? The foe is in the land of Morven, and the king is abfent.

Fingal.
Haft